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GIFT OF

ESTATE OF
PROFESSOR ERNEST BERNBAUM

|£>Si: HARVARD COLLEGE LIBRARY.

f;^'

ANn-SUFFRAGE

ESSAYS.

Anti-Suffrage Essays

MASSACHUSETTS WOMEN

WITH AN INTRODUCnON
BY

ERNEST BERNBAUM, Ph.D.

(Harvard UniTersitj)

THE FORUM PUBLICATIONS

OF BOSTON
1916

Soc 50^/. 7

AU Bights Reserved

«ARVAROUNlVElisiTY
LIBRARY

APR 25 1984

■^-H

Gratefully Dedicated

to the 296^939 Massachusetts Men

Who J on Election Day^ 1916

Endorsed the Anti-Suffrage Sentiments

of the Women of Massachusetts

INTRODUCTION

THE ANTI-SUFFRAGE VICTORY IN
MASSACHUSETTS

The essays in this httle book are by anti-suffrage
women who were prominent speakers, writers, and
organizers, in the campaign of 1915. They voice senti-
ments which gained the largest measure of popular
support ever accorded in the history of Massachusetts
poUtics.

The largest number of votes any poUtical party
polled in Massachusetts before 1915 was 278,976.
The anti-suffragists polled 295,939. Since 1896 there
has been but one instance in which the voters gained
a plurality amounting to 110,000 votes. The anti-
suffragists won by 133,447 votes. Alton B. Parker's
defeat by Theodore Roosevelt in 1904 is commonly
regarded as typif3dng political annihilation; but the
suffragists in 1915 did not poll as many votes as Mr.
Parker, and the anti-suffragists polled 38,000 more
than President Roosevelt at the height of his popu-
larity. Such outworn words as "overwhelming" and
"landslide," which have been regularly used to describe
victories not half so great as this, understate the

INTRODDCTION

actual extent of the anti-suffrage triumph. The pro-
nounced aversion which Massachusetts showed towards
Horace Greeley in the presidential campaign of 1872,
and towards William J. Bryan in that of 1896, scarcely
exceeded that which she feels towards the sufTn^ista
today.

The grounds of this avej-sion are so numerous that
it is difficult to determine which of the many causes of
the anti-suffrage victory were the most powerful.
In my opinion, however, Massachusetts men defeated
woman suffrage chiefly because (1) they discovered
that nine women out of ten did not want to vote;
(2) they knew that the creation of a large body of
stay-at-home voters would result in bad government;
and (3) they grew disgusted with the temperament,
the Dotions, and the methods typical of the few women
who clamored for the vote.

For at least two generations suffragists have been
spending a huge amount of energy and money in spread-
ing their doctrine. Contributions, mainly drawn from
a few rich women, have enabled them to send profes-
sional speakers into every district of the state, to dis-
tribute tons of "literature," to supply the press with
a constant stream of "news" written from their point
of view, and in general to advertise their claims in the
most lavish way. A propaganda so subsidized would
have been successful decades ago if sound principles
and common sense were on its side. But to their con-
sternation the suffragists found that the vast majority
of Massachusetts women turned a deaf ear to their

INTRODUCTION XI

plausible appeals, and that their strongest opponents
were those of their own sex.

Suffragists continued to talk about what "we
women" want. But men presently began to see that
these women had no right to pretend to represent their
sex. Even their own claims as to the number of women
supporting them showed that they represented only
between 5% and 10% of the women of Massachusetts.
At least 90% of the women — either by open opposi-
tion, or by a marked indifference to the subject —
showed that they did not believe in woman suffrage.
It became obvious that no general statement could be
more emphatically true than that Massachusetts wo-
men did not want to vote.

When this truth was insistently pressed upon the
suffragists, they were apt to call the indifferent women
"imenlightened." This was felt to be an insult rather
than an explanation. The average Massachusetts
man does not think his mother, wife, and sister "unen-
Ughtened" — certainly not on the suffrage question.
She has heard and read the suffrage notions again and
again. He knows that if she felt that man was her
oppressor, or that the welfare of herself or her family
would be increased by her enfranchisement, she would
say so. She is a sensible, observant woman, who knows
what she wants, does not hesitate to ask for it, and
usually gets it. But she was not asking for the ballot.
It did not take her long to see through the suffrage
fallacy that "only those women would need to vote
who want to. ' ' She realized that the vote would mean

INTBODUCTIO^f

an obligation as well as a privilege, and th:
not honorably accept the privilege without undertaking
the obligation. Her life being already crowded with
duties that only she could discharge, she would not add
to them one that her husband, brother, or son can
discharge at least as well.

If any man wondered whether his personal inquiries
among the women of his acquaintance gave a suffi-
ciently broad basis for the belief that women did not
want to vote, he became convinced of the fact when
he learned about the Drury bill of 1913. This bill
would have given Massachusetts women a chance to
vote "Yes" or "No" on woman suffrage. The proposal
resulted in the amazing revelation that the suffragists
were afraid to let women vot« on the question. They
worked against the bill because they knew that an offi-
cial count would disclose how pitiably small a frac-
tion of women were on their side. They thought that
their little group, by noisy pubhcity, could be made to
appear a considerable number. But the men, when
they discovered who opposed the Drury bill, were not
deceived. They saw that a small minority of women
was trying to induce them to coerce the great major-
ity. They awoke to the fact that the suffragist's de-
mand was not that men should grant women an ex-
pressed desire, but that men, contemptuously disre-
garding the evident wishes of women, should force
upon them a heavy responsibility.

The nature of that responsibility brings us to what
seems to me the second important cause for the auf-

INTRODUCTION Xlll

frage defeat. Men — ^more than politically inexperi-
enced women, — know that good government depends
upon the willingness of the electorate to do its duty
vigilantly and regularly. The greatest good of the
greatest number of classes (including the women and
children in each class) can be secured only when a
large proportion of the eligible voters vote. Those
voters who are led by bosses, or by selfish interests,
go to the polls steadily. Their influence can be offset
only when the rest of the electorate goes likewise.
The results of elections in which a small proportion
of the eUgible voters take part, are poor laws and in-
competent or corrupt government. The leading po-
litical issues — ^the tariff, trusts, transportation, miU-
tary and police force, taxation, finance, etc. — bear di-
rectly upon the work of men in their trades and busi-
ness, and under male suffrage a fairly large proportion
of the vote is cast. The life-work of women removes
them from contact with these pohtical questions, and
the nature of most women is not attracted by the con-
tentious spirit in which political warfare is conducted.
As long as no more than 10% of the women took an
interest in the woman suffrage question itself, no man
could reasonably expect them to be otherwise than in-
different to the regular subjects of political conflict.
To impose political duties upon the sex against its
will was simply to create conditions that encouraged
corrupt and feeble government. The soundness of
this principle was, furthermore, being demonstrated
in woman-suffrage territory, such cities as Seattle and

INTRODUCTION

such states as Colorado showing that sooner or i
a neglectful electorate leads to the downfall of good
government.

The third cause for the defeat of woman suffrage
was the disgust which the manners, methods, and un-
ethical sentiments of the suffragists aroused. This
is not pleasant to dwell upon, but was too important an
influence in the campaign to leave unmentioned. The
suffragists professed to "occupy higher moral ground,"
to uplift politics, and to elevate womanhood. The
longer one observed their deeds and words, the surer
one became that they were not uplifting politics and
that they tended to disgrace women in men's eyes.
The tone of politics can be improved if the contestants
will avoid false assertions and unnecessary personal
attacks. The suffragiats said and did things which
were, like militancy, excusable only on the immoral
ground that the end justifies the means.

As an example of their disingenuous statements, the
following may serve. The National Woman Suffrage
Association circulated a flyer entitled "Twenty Facts
About Woman Suffrage." "Fact No, 15," under the
heading, "How Women Vote," read: "Arizona, Cali-
fornia, Colorado and Washington are the only stat^
in the Union which have eight-hour laws for working
women." Any unsuspecting reader would infer just
what he was intended to infer — namely, that it was
woman suffrage that brought about all these eight-
hour laws, and that male suffrage had not brought
about any of them. A more nearly truthful heading

INTBODUCTION XV

for this "fact" would have been "How Men Vote."
The credit for passing the eight-hour law in California
and in Washington (also in Arizona so far as laundry
workers are concerned) belongs to legislatures elected
by men alone. False suggestions of this type no doubt
gained many proselytes in parlor meetings; but when
they were made in the open forum of a public campaign,
their imtruth was exposed, and the voters grew indig-
nant that women should thus have tried to mislead them.
The suffragists only made a bad matter worse by alleg-
ing that their anti-suffrage sisters were given to mis-
representations and to every other crime in the politi-
cal calendar; for men thereupon concluded that if this
initial participation in poUtics had such a demoralizing
effect on the women of each side, it was best to keep
both parties out of the arena altogether.

The suffragists' tendencies to make bitter personal
attacks was repeatedly shown. Not wishing to resur-
rect some of the venemous charges brought against
anti-suffrage women, I take leave to illustrate the base-
less characters of such attacks by one made against
myself. In the spring of 1915, I gave a series of lec-
tures on the fundamental principles of anti-suffrage.
The audiences were gratifyingly large; there was a
demand for several repetitions of the lectures; and,
apparently, the suffragists felt that something must be
done to destroy my pernicious influence. Instead of
answering my arguments, the President of the Massa-
chusetts Suffrage Association, Miss Alice Stone Black-

XVI INTRODUCTION

well, wrote an editorial in her "Woman's Journal/'
Raying:

"This young gentleman is a Dane, and he has been
very fluent and somewhat contemptuous in giving
reasons why American women should not be allowed
to vote."

The statement was, as usual, spread broadcast
through the suffrage columns of the Massachusetts
newspapers; and doubtless my opponents indulged the
hope that in the wave of national feeling which was
then beginning to rise, anybody thus branded as a for-
eigner would be badly discredited. As a matter of
fa(;t, I was bom in Brooklyn, N. Y. (If I had chosen to
imitate Miss Blackwell's method of controversy, I
might have retorted that my father, who was born in
Denmark, but who came to America in 1855, fought as
a volunteer oflficer in the Navy of the United States
in the Civil War, at a time when Miss Blackwell's
father was engaged in a safer occupation.)

The repellant impression made upon men by the
suffragists' misstatements and personal abusiveness
was deepened by their support of militancy and fem-
inism. As to the unethical character of the latter,
Mrs. Foxcroft's essay in this book presents startling
and irrefutable testimony. As to militancy, it may be
said that this furnished the most glaring (though not
the only) evidence of the evil effect of poUtical activ-
ity on women. Much is usually made of the fact
that Mrs. Pankhurst and her accomplices in crime de-
stroyed a large amount of valuable property. But the

INTBODUCTION XVU

greatest injury she and her American idoUzers did was
to lower man's ideal of woman. They tried to make the
idrago a heroine. They did not succeed; but the more
Mrs. Pankhurst's apologists glorified her, the more
men were determined not to endorse a party that
tempted women to abandon real womanliness for mock
masculinity.

Ernest Bernbaum

Gambbidgb, Mass.
Fdjruaryy 1916

N.B.—

To prevent misunderstanding, it should be said
that though the following essays represent in general
the views of Massachusetts antinsuffragists, the respon-
sibility for the facts and opinions given in the various
essays rests with the individual writers alone.

CONTENTS.

PAGE

Introduction — Ernest Bernbaum . . . ix
Who the Massachusetts Anti-Suffragists

Are 21

Mrs. John Balch
essay

I Suffrage Fallacies 24

Mrs. a. J. George

II The Ballot and the Woman in In-
dustry *. . . 31

Mrs. Henry Preston White

III A Business Woman's View of Suf-

frage 38

Edith Melvin

IV Some Practical Aspects of the

Question 43

Ellen Mudge Burrill

V How Massachusetts Fosters Public

Welfare 53

Monica Foley

VI Massachusetts Compared With Suf-
frage States 62

Catherine Robinson

VII Woman Suffrage AND War ... 67
Mrs. Charles P. Strong

CONTENTS

VIII WoifAN Suffrage VS. Womanliness 77

Mbs. Thomas Allen

IX Abe Suffragists Sincere Reformers 81
Mrs. Augustin H. Parker

X Suffrage AND the School Teacher . 85

Elizabeth Jackson

XI Suffrage and THE Social Worker 90

Dorothy Godfrey Wayman

XII Woman Suffrage a Menace to Social

Reform 98

Margaret C. Robinson

XIII The Anti-Suffrage Ideal . . .118

Mrs. Herbert Lyman

XIV The True Function of the Nobmal

Woman 123

Mrs. Horace A. Davis

XV The Imperative Demand Upon Women

. INTHEHOBiE 128

Mrs. Charles Burton Gulick

XVI Suffrage AND the Sex Problem . 136

Mrs. William Lowell Putnam

XVII Suffrage A Step Toward Febonism . 141

Lily Rice Foxcroft

Important Anti-Suffrage Publica-
tions 163

Anti-Suffrage Essays

WHO THE MASSACHUSETTS ANTI-
SUFFRAGISTS ARE

MBS. JOHN BALCH

Katharine Torbert Balchj wife of John Balch; Treas--
urer of the Summer Industrial School of Milton; mem-
ber of the Executive Committee of the Milton Branch
of the Civil Service Reform Association; director
of the Ely Club of New York City; member of
the Executive Committee of the special Preparedness
Committee appointed by Governor Walsh; President of
the Massachusetts Women^s Anti-Suffrage Association,

J. A. H.

In reply to oft-repeated calumnies about the mem-
bership and aflSliations of the Anti-Suflfrage Associa-
tion, I offer a plain statement of facts which can be
verified.

36,761 Massachusetts women, twenty-one years of
age or over, are to-day registered members of the Massa-
chusetts Women's Anti-Suflfrage Association. They
are not confined to one section of the state, but are

ANTI-SUFFRAG E

found distributed among no less than 443 cities, towns,
and villages. Each year the organization increases;
and each year the members of the 137 state branches
draw closer together in their opposition to suffrage and
their striving for the true progress of woman and of
civihzation.

These women are not of only one class or type. An
examination of our enrollment reveals among our mem-
bers not only the very large group of homemakers,
but also authors, doctors, lawyers, teachers, librarians,
newspaper-writers, stenographers, social service work-
ers, cooks, housemaids, nurses, milliners, insurance
agents, restaurant-keepers, clerks, shopkeepers, pri-
vate secretaries, dressmakers, seamstresses, etc., etc.
During the recent campaign, the co-operation, devo-
tion, and self-sacrifice of this body of women was in-
spiring. From the wage-earner who endured syste-
matic nagging, if not persecution, from suiTragiats, to
the woman of wealth who gave of her vitality to the
breaking point, daily came the evidences of immovable
faith in the righteousness of their cause.

Many of our leaders are prominent in public welfare
activities. The late Mrs. Charles D. Homans, one of the
founders of our organization, was an active and im-
portant member of the Massachusetts Prison Commis-
sion. Mrs. James M. Codman, our beloved ex-Presi-
dent, has served twenty years on the State Board of
Charities, was one of the first women overseers of the
poor ever elected in this state, and has long been one of
the manaf^ers of a large private hospital. Miss Mary S.

ANTIHSUPFBAGE ESSAYS 23

Ames, a former President, is a member of the Executive
Comicil (New England section) of the National Civic
Federation, Chairman of the Committee on Practical
Training for Girls, a Trustee of the Boston Home for
Incurables, one of the managers of the Women's Free
Hospital, a director of the Brook House Home for
Working Girls, a member of the Easton Agricultural
Vocational Training Conamittee, a Trustee of Unity
Church (Easton), and a member of the Advisory-
Board of the Belgian Relief Conamittee. Mrs. Henry
P. Kidder, of our Executive Board, is President of the
Woman's Educational Association. Mrs. Robert S.
Bradley, also of our Executive Board, is Chairman of
the Sanitation Department of the Women's Municipal
League, and has led in the fight for exterminating the
typhoid fly. Were I to continue to enmnerate the
characteristic activities of our anti-suffrage women, I
could fill pages with the record of their participation
in philanthropy, education, and all good works. The
brief notes prefixed to the essays in this book give addi-
tional evidence to the same effect.

SUFFRAGE FALLACIES

MBS. A. J. OEOBGE

Alice N. George, widow of Dr. Andrew J. George;
gradtuUed from WeUesley in 1887; is President of the
Brookline Branch of the Ramabai Association; Ameri-
can Representative of the National Trust (English) for
the Preservation of Historic Places; a director of the
College Clvb; a member of the Research Committee of the
Educational and Industrial Union, of the Welfare De-
partment of the National Civic Federation of the Wo-
man's Trade Union League, of the American Society for
Labor Legislation, etc., etc. J. A. H.

Woman suffrage must ultimately fail. It is based
upon a fallacy; and no fallacy has ever made a perma-
nent conquest over mankind.

The fallacy of woman suffrage lies in the belief
that there is in om* social order a definite sex division
of interests, and that the security of woman's interests
depends upon her possession of the elective franchise.

"The history of mankind/' declared the founders of
the suffrage movement, "is a history of repeated
injuries and usurpations on the part of man toward

ANTI-SUFFBAGE ESSAYS 25

woman, having as the indirect object the establishment
of an absolute tyranny over her." "Man has endeavored
in every way he could," continues this arraignment of
the fathers, husbands, and sons of these self-styled
Mothers of the Revolution, "to destroy her confidence
in her own powers, to lessen her self-respect and to
make her willing to lead a dependent and abject life."

On this false foundation was built the votes-for-
women temple. How shall it endure? The sexes do
not stand in the position of master and slave, of tyrant
and victim. In a healthy state of society there is no
rivalry between men and women; they were created
diflFerent, and in the economy of life have different
duties, but their interests are the common interests of
humanity. Women are not a class, they are a sex;
and the women of every social group are represented
in a well-ordered government, automatically and in-
evitably, by the men of that group. It would be a
fatal day for the race when women could obtain their
rights only by a victory wrested at the polls from re-
luctant men. These truths are elementary and self-
evident, yet all are negatived by the votes-for-women
movement.

That the vote is not an inalienable right is aflfcmed
by Supreme Court decisions, the practice of nations,
and the dictates of comtmon sense. No state can en-
franchise all its citizens, and since the stability of
government rests ultimately upon a relentless enforce-
ment of law, the maintenance of a sound fiscal policy,
and such adjustment of the delicate interweaving of

ANTI-SUFFRAGE ESSAYS

iotematioDal relations as makes for peace and j
perity, it is right that the state should place the re-
sponsibility of government upon those who are best
equipped to perform its manifold duties.

Woman's citizenship is as real as man's, and do
reflectioD upon her abilities is involved in the assertion
that woman is not fitted for government either by
nature or by contact in daily experience with affairs
akin to government. She is weak along the hnes where
the lawmaker must be strong. In all departments
where the law is to be apphed and enforced, woman's
nature forbids her entrance. The casting of a ballot is
the last step in a long process of pohtical organization;
it is the signing of a contract to undertake vast respon-
sibilities, since it is the following of the ballot to its
conclusion which makes the body politic sound. Oth-
erwise political power without political responsibilitj'
threatens disaster to all.

Thus far we have made a few crude experiments in
double suffrage, but nowhere has equal suffrage been
tried. Equal suffrage imphes a fair field with favor to
none — a field where woman, stripped of legal and civil
advantages, must take her place as man's rival in the
struggle for existence; for, in the long run, woman
cannot have equal rights and retain special privileges.
If the average woman is to be a voter, she must accept
jury service and aid in the protection of life and prop-
erty. Wlien the mob threatens, she must not shield
herself behind her equal in government. She must
relinquish her rights and exemptions under the law

ANTI-SUFFRAGE ESSAYS 27

and in civil life, if she is to take her place as a responsible
elector and compete with man as the provider and gov-
ernor of the race. Such equality would be a brutal
and retrogressive view of woman's rights. It is im-
possible, and here we have the unanswerable answer
to woman suffrage theories.

No question of superiority or equaUty is involved
in the opposition to votes for women. The test of
woman's worth is her ability to solve the problems and
do the work she must face as a woman if the race is
not to deteriorate and civiUzation perish. The woman's
suffrage movement is an imitation-of-man movement,
and as such merits the condemnation of every normal
man and woman.

Doubtless we can live through a good deal of con-
fusion, but it is not on any lines of functional unfitness
that life is to be fulfilled. Woman must choose with
discrimination those channels of activity wherein
"what she most highly values may be won." Are these
values in the department of government or in the
equally essential departments of education, society,
and religion?

The attempt to interpret woman's service to the
state in terms of political activity is a false appraisal
of the contribution she has always made to the general
welfare. All this agitation for the ballot diverts atten-
tion from the only source from which permanent re-
lief can come, and fastens it upon the ballot box. It is
by physical, intellectual, and moral education that oiu*
citizenship is gradually improved, and here woman's

ANTI-SUFFRAGE ESSAYS

Opportunities are supreme. If women are not efficient
in their own dominion, then in the name of common
sense let thera be trained for efficiency in that dominion
and not diffuse their energies by dragging them through
the devious paths of political activity.

Equal suffrage is clearly impossible; double suffrage,
tried under most favorable conditions in sparsely
settled western states has made no original contribu-
tion to the problem of sound government. On the
other side of the ledger we find that the enfranchise-
ment of women has increased taxes, added greatly to
the menace of an indifferent electorate, and enlarged
the bulk of unenforced and unenforceable laws.

Why does double suffrage, with its train of proved
evils and its false appraisal of woman's contribution to
the general welfare, come knocking at our doors? Not a
natural right; a failure wherever tried; demanded by
a small minority in defiance of all principles of true
democracy; what excuse is there for it?

The confusion of social and personal rights with
pohcital, the substitution of emotionalism for inves-
tigation and knowledge, the mania for uplift by legis-
lation, have widely advertised the suffrage propaganda.
The reforms for which the founders of the suffrage
movement declared women needed the vote have
all been accomplished by the votes of men. The vote
has been witheld through the indifference and oppo-
sition of women, for this is the only woman's move-
ment which has been met by the organized opposi-
tion of women.

ANTI-SUFFBAGE ESSAYS 29

Suffragists still demand the vote. Why? Perhaps
the answer is found in the cry of the younger suffragists :
"We ask the vote as a means to an end — that end being
a complete social revolution!" When we realize that
this social revolution involves the economic, social,
and sexual independence of women, we know that
Gladstone had the prophet's vision when he called
woman suffrage a "revolutionary" doctrine.

Woman suffrage is the political phase of feminism;
the whole sweep of the relation of the sexes must be
revised if the woman's vote is to mean anything more
than two people doing what one does now. Merely to
duplicate the present vote is unsound economy. To
re-enforce those who clamor for individual rights is to
strike at the family as the self-governing unit upon
which the state is built.

This is not a question of what some women want or
do not want — ^it is solely a question of how the average
woman shall best contribute her part to the general
welfare. Anti-suffragists contend that the average
woman can serve best by remaining a non-partisan
and working for the conmion good outside the realms
of political strife. To prove this contention they point
to what women have done without the ballot and what
they have failed to do with it.

Anti-suffragists are optimists. They are concerned
at the attempt of an organized, aggressive, well financed
minority to force its will upon the majority of women
through a false interpretation of representative de-
mocracy; but they know that a movement so false in

30 ANTI-SUFFBAGE ESSAYS

its conception, so false in its economy, so false in its
reflections upon men and its estimate of women, so
utterly unnecessary and unnatural, cannot achieve a
permanent success.

THE BALLOT AND THE WOMAN IN INDUSTRY

MRS. HENRY PRESTON WHITE

Sara C, White, vrife of Henry Preston White; ediLcated
in the Emma Willard School of Troy, New York; a mem-
ber of the Auxiliary Board of Directors of the Brookline
Day Nursery; member of the Committee on Ventilation of
Public Conveyances {Woman^s Municipal League);
With Miss Mabel Stedman of Brookline, Mrs. White
started the model moving-picture show in connection
with the Brookline Friendly Society. She is a well-known
speaker for the anti-suffrage cause. J. A. H.

The argument that the woman in industry needs
the ballot in order to obtain fair wages and fair working
conditions has undoubtedly made many converts to
the cause of woman suffrage. The sympathies of the
average man, who is ever solicitous for the welfare of
women, go out especially to the woman who must
compete with men in the work-a-day world. And so,
when he is told that there are 8,000,000 such women
in this country, and that their lot would be much easier
if they could vote, he is apt to think it worth a trial

ANTI-SUFFRAGE ESSAYS

anyway and to give his support, without further con-
sideration, to the "votes for women" movement.

Now, if it were true that there are 8,000,000 women
in industry, and that these must have the ballot in
order to get fair treatment, it would be a strong argu-
ment for woman suffrage — though by no means a
conclusive argument, since the fundamental question
is the greatest good of the greatest number, and not
the greatest good of any class. But it is not true that
there are 8,000,000 women in industry, and a single
sensible reason has yet to be advanced for the conten-
tion that women in industry, even if they numbered
8,000,000, could better their condition by undertaking
political methods.

There are in the United States, according to the last
census, 8,075,772 females 10 years of age and over en-
gaged in gainful occupations. Of these, over 3,600,000
are employed in domestic and personal service, where
wage and working conditions are determined chiefly
by women, and in "agricultural pursuits," a classifica-
tion including every female who sella eggs or butter
on the home farm. Approximately 4,000,000 of the
remaining gainfully occupied females work in store,
factory, and shop, and of these nearly 1,500,000 are
imder twenty-one.

Thus, instead of 8,000,000 women in industry who
are alleged to "need the ballot," we have only about
2,500,000 women of voting age employed in industries
that can reasonably be said to come within the category
of those properly subject to remedial labor l^islation;

ANTI-SUFFRAGE ESSAYS 33

and of these women a very large percentage are aliens
and would not be entitled to use the ballot if woman
suffrage were granted. By itself, of course, this fact
does not dispose of the argument that the industrial
woman needs the ballot, but it does reveal how com-
paratively few are the women who could possibly try
to improve their working conditions by means of the
vote, and how hopelessly outnmnbered they would be
if reduced to the necessity of fighting for their rights
at the ballot box.

The premise of the suffrage argument that the wo-
man in industry needs the ballot in order to get fair
treatment is the assumption that she now fails to get
as fair treatment as is given the industrial man, and
that this is due to the fact that she has no vote. This
arbitrary assumption is without justification either in
fact or reason. Every law placed upon the statute-
books of any state for the benefit of the working man is
a blanket law and covers men and women engaged in
the same industry. All the benefits that have accrued
to the working man through legislation are enjoyed
equally by his sister in industry. In addition she has
the advantage of special protective laws which have
been enacted simply because she is a woman — ^because
she is weaker physically than man and because she is
a potential mother and must be protected in the in-
terest of the race.

I am not arguing, of course, that the working woman
has all the protection she needs, but I am arguing that
she is not imf airly treated as compared with her indus-

34 ANTI-SUFFRAGE ESSAYD

trial brother, who has the ballot, and that whatever
hardships she may now suffer are as likely to be removed
without woman suffrage as they are with it. If she is
being unfairly treated, I think it will be found that she
is so treated in common with all industrial workers —
simply because she is a worker and not at all because
she is a woman.

And in taking this ground I am by no means forced
to depend upon theory; for, after all, the best answer
to the dogma that the woman in industry needs the
ballot in order to obtain fair wages and fair working
conditions is the fact that in states where women have
voted anywhere from 4 to 46 years the laws for the
working woman are no better than they are in male
suffrage states. Indeed, it is pretty generally agreed
that the states which have been first and most pro-
gressive in enacting laws for the benefit of women and
children in industry are states that have refused to
give women the vote.

It is quite true, as the suffragists so constantly tell
us, that the only states having eight-hour laws for
women in industry are woman suffrage states. But it
is true, too, that the eight-hour laws of California,
Oregon, and Washington, of which so much is heard,
are not to be taken at their face value, since they do
not cover the canning industry, which is the chief in-
dustry in all those states. It is true, also, that what
is considered by experts the most advanced step in
protective legislation for women in industry, the pro-
hibition of night work, has been taken only in male

ANTI-SUFFRAGE ESSAYS 36

suffrage states. In Massachusetts and Nebraska the
laws provide for a 54-hour week for women in industry,
provide for one day's rest in seven, and prohibit night
work. Will any one deny that these laws are infinitely
better for women in industry than the boasted eight-
hour law of Colorado, under which it is permissible for
a woman to work nights and Sundays and 56 hours a
week?

Now as to the question of "fair wages." The suflFra-
gists tell us that women in industry are entitled to
equal pay with men, and that this will follow upon the
heels of woman suflFrage. Here again we have experience
to guide us, and we find upon investigation that in no
state has the ratio between men's and women's wages
been affected by doubling the electorate. Dr. Helen
Sumner, who made a thorough investigation of this
point, says in her book entitled Eqiud Suffrage:
"Taking the public employment as a whole, women
in Colorado receive considerably less remuneration
than men. It is the old story of supply and demand
in the conmiercial world, and suffrage has probably
nothing to do with the wages of either men or women.
The wages of men and women in all fields of industry
are governed by economic conditions."

By tables carefully compiled, Dr. Sumner shows
that in Colorado, women in private employment re-
ceive an average of only 47 per cent of the average of
men's wages, while in the United States as a whole the
average for women is 55.3 per cent of the average for
men, and in Massachusetts, where woman suffrage

36 ANTI-SUFFEAGE ESSAYS

was recently defeated by nearly two to one in the
largest vote in the state's history, women receive 62
cents for every 100 cents paid to men in wages.

No one can deny, of course, that the wages of women
in industry average considerably lower than those of
men. But the reasons for this are found entirely out-
side of politics. The average girl is a transient in in-
dustry, going into it as a temporary expedient to tide
her over until she attains her natural desire, which is
to marry, settle down, and raise a family. She is,
therefore, not so good an investment for her employer
as the boy who works beside her, who has gone into the
business with the idea of matdng it his life work, and
who has a stronger incentive to make himself more
valuable.

It must be remembered that employers of labor
do not pay for men and women, but for results. Sam-
uel Gompers, an ardent suffragist, says women get
less because they ask for less. That ia true in part.
Women do ask for less. One reason for this is that they
look upon the job as something temporary. Another
reason is, very frequently, that they are not entirely
dependent on their own earnings, but are partly sup-
ported in their parents' home. But in the majority of
eases, the industrial woman gets less than the indus-
trial man because she is worth less, being not only
less experienced, but physically unable to compete
with him on a basis of absolute equahty.

If the proof of the pudding is in the eating, the proof
of woman suffrage is in its operation; and, when we

ANTI-BUPPRAGE ESSAYS 37

find that it has failed to fulfill its promises where longest
tried, it is hard to listen patiently to pleas for its further
extension. The vote has never raised the wages or
shortened the hours of men. It has never done it and
can never do it for women. The industrial woman
can gain nothing by it. She will lose much, as will
other women.

Ill

A BUSINESS WOMAN'S VIEW OF SUFFRAGE

EDITH MELVIN

Miss Edith Mehnn, educated in the pvblic and private
schools of Concord and by her father , James Mdvin, who,
by reason of service in the Civil War was a totally helpless
invalid confined to his bed for many years before his
death, when he left a widow and an ordy child dependent
upon themselves for support. After three months as assist-
ant to the advertising manager of a large medicine produc-
ing company, she entered the law office of Judge PrescoU
Keyes without business training other than in stenography
and typewriting. In this law office has had more than
twenty years practical business and legal experience, a po-
sition of ever increasing responsibilities requiring steady
and effixnent study and thought. Not a member of the Bar,
never having applied for admission because not believing
in women becoming lawyers. Has served as President
of the Guild of the First Parish (Concord) and Secretary
of the South Middlesex Federation of Young People's
Religious Unions. Is an experienced public speaker.
Has been an offijcer and active member of Old Concord
Chapter, D. A. R. For many years a householder and
taxpayer. J. A. H.

ANTI-SUFFRA^GE ESSAYS 39

After more than two decades spent in active busi-
ness life, I am of the opinion that members of my sex
do not need the ballot, and that it would be a distinct
and unnecessary encumbrance to them. For more
than twenty years, I regret to state, my life has been
more that of a man than of a woman. A home-support-
er by the actual work of my hands and my brain, rather
than a home-maker; my life has been past amid the
heat and turmoil of business life, working shoulder to
shoulder with men, pitting my brain against the brains
of men; and having no male relative to represent me
in the business of the government, a taxpayer "without
representation." That business life has been satisfac-
tory to me in many ways, I admit; but in order to
wrest its satisfactions from the turmoil, I have been
forced to siunmon up the determination, the endurance,
the physical and mental labor, which by all the laws of
nature belong not to the "female of the species" but
to the male. Its successes have been apparent suc-
cesses when considered as parallel with man's work in
the world, but failiu'es when one considers that not for
the sharp, insistent contact of business life was woman
created. I still feel no desire to assist the male sex in
the business of government, nor do I think I am fitted
so to do. I desire to be permitted to continue my
present freedom from political activities, and I am con-
tent to leave that part of life's work in the hands of
the sex which, to my mind, has managed it hitherto
exceedingly well.

I have never seen any point or place where the

ANTI-SUFFRAGE ESSAYS

power to oast a ballot would have been of the slightest
help to rae. For myself I should regard the duties and
responsibilities of thorough, well-informed, and faith-
ful participation year after year in political matters as
a very great misfortune; even more of a misfortune
than the certainty of being mixed up in the bitter strife,
the falsifications, and publicity often attendant upon
political campaigns. Though my work has trained me
to use my mind in matters pertaining to law and to
business, it would certainly be incumbent upon me to
make a thorough study of the theory and practice of
government before attempting to exercise the franchise.
I feel sure that the average business woman cannot
make such a study or engage in politics without in-
terference not merely with her physical, but with her
mental business life, which should command her con-
stant and best attention.

Many women are now undertaking to engage in
business, not as a life-work, but as an incidental exper-
ience. It is true, however, that of the many thousands
of women so engaged, very, very few climb up the lad-
der of success to the top rounds. It is the rare excep-
tion rather than the rule for women to attain marked
distinction, great wealth, or fame in the business world.
This is not caused by any unfairness of the male sex,
but by the nature, the physical and mental limita-
tions, of the members of the female sex. The trivial-
ities of the afternoon tea are too often present in the
work of the wage-earning woman — too often she has
too shght a regard of her duty to return full value for

ANTI-SUFFRAGE ESSAYS 41

the pecuniary consideration she receives. The career
of too many wage earning women is now entirely hap-
hazard, the result of necessity rather than well-ground-
ed choice. It is fair to assume that poUtical matters
would receive the same degree of smattering knowledge
and thought as is too often received by the daily occu-
pation into which many women drift.

It is much to be deplored that the trend of some
modem young women is more towards the commercial
life in which her success is doubtful, rather than toward
the home-keeping, child-bearing, social, reUgious, and
philanthropic life for which she was physically and
mentally designed. These latter duties women faith-
fully and successfully perform as their natiu'al function,
and through them they may rise to the greatest dis-
tinction. Femininity should be cherished by the woman
whom circumstance or necessity drives into the wage-
earning world, and she can cherish it by retaining her
hold on social, religious, and charitable interests; but
she cannot hope to do so if she attends political meet-
ings, serves on political committees, canvasses dis-
tricts for votes, watches at the polls, serves on juries,
and debates political questions or records and promises
of political candidates. We have seen the loss of
femininity produced by the constant campaigning for
suffrage.

The instability of the female mind is beyond the
comprehension of the majority of men. The charm,
the "sweet unreasonableness," the lack of power of
consecutive thought upon any intricate problem, which

42 ANTI-SUFFRA.GE ESSAYS

mark the average woman are sometimes attractive
and in personal or family relations not without com-
pensating advantages. In the business world, however,
these attributes are wholly detrimental. Business
women might possibly bring to poUtical matters such
training and experience as they acquired, but to re-
strict the franchise to them would be to create a class
franchise. We must remember that suflFrage would
bring to the electorate not merely the small number
of business women, but the great mass of women who
have had Uttle or no experience of life outside of their
homes.

In brief, then, the voting privilege granted to women,
and particularly to business women, would be a detri-
ment to the women, and it would not be of suflBicient
value to the government to outweigh the loss to them.

SOME PRACTICAL ASPECTS OF THE

QUESTION

ELLEN MUDGE BURRILL

Miss Ellen Mudge BurriU, educated in the Lynn pub-
lic schoolsj graducUed from the Lynn Classical High
School; now in the employ of the Commonwealth as
Cashier in the Sergeani-ai-Arms Department; Super-
visor in the First Universalist Sunday School of Lynn;
a member of the Council of the Lynn Historical Society;
author of the **Staie House Guide Book" "Essex Trust
Company of Lynn'* (the successor of the Lynn Mechan-
ics Bank,) "The BurriU Family of Lynn During the
Colonial and Provincial Periods," and of "Our Church
and the People Who Made Her" bein^ a history of The
First Universalist Parish, Lynn. J, A, H.

If suffrage were a natural right, then women should
have it, and at once, but it is not like the right to have
person and property protected, which every man,
woman and child already possesses. It is not a natural
right, but a means of government, and therefore a mat-
ter of expediency. The question is, will government
by the votes of men and women together produce

44 ANTIHSUFPRAGE ESSAYS

better results than by men alone? Suffrage means
more than casting a ballot; if it means anything ef-
fectual, it means entering the field of politics. Had
the proposed amendment been ratified, it would have
become the duty of all women to vote systematically
in all primary and regular elections. Would they have
done it in justifiable numbers?

Look at Public Docmnent No. 43, giving the num-
ber of assessed polls and registered voters for the Mass-
achusetts State election of 1914:
Assessed PoUs Registered Voters Persons Voting

1,019,063 610,667 466,360

Also for the City and Town elections of 1914:
Assessed PoUs, Registered Voters Males Who

Male Male Voted

1,229,641 740,871 532,241

It is evident from these figures that a larger propor-
tion of men should fulfill their duty to the State. Gov-
ernment being one means to the end, of making better
conditions, the indifference of so many thousand is
beyond comprehension, and is a serious menace to the
Commonwealth. It was Governor Ciurtis Guild who
said: ''I base my anti-suffrage position on the fact
that our great failures in legislation are caused not so
much by a vicious element among the voters, as by
abstention from voting and emotional voting."

That granting the ballot to women would greatly
increase the proportion of those who neglect to vote, is
dearly shown by the results of giving women the school
vote. In 1879 the Massachusetts Legislature, assuming

ANTI-SUFFRAGE ESSAYS 45

that women were peculiarly interested in school affairs,
bestowed the school franchise upon them. See how
they have accepted that charge! According to the
United States Census of 1910, there were 1,074,485
women of voting age in this State. Of this number
there are approximately 622,000 eligible to register and
vote for School Conmiittee. Here is the School vote
for 1914:

Women Who Registered Women Who Voted

101,439 45,820

Here is the school vote of the women for the city
election in Lynn, 1914:

Approximate number of women of vot-
ing age in Lynn 18,000

Total registration 1,759

Number of women who voted 1,070

Li a pamphlet entitled, "Women and the School
Vote," Miss Alice Stone Blackwell, trying to explain
away the real meaning of the situation, says:

"A woman's name, once placed on the register, is
now kept there until she dies, moves or marries. When
a town or city shows a large registration of women
and a small vote, it means that on some occasion,
perhaps ten years ago, there was an exciting contest
at the school election, and many women registered and
voted. When the contest was over, many of the women
ceased to vote, but their names stayed on the regis-
ter."

Her conclusion is that this is "the simple explana-
tion of the lessened proportion of women's votes to

46 ANTI-SUFFRAGE ESSAYS

registration." But a more striking conclusion must be
drawn, namely, that it isn't enough to vote when there
is an exciting contest; that it is only well as far as it
goes, but it should be kept up. The State has a right
to expect it. In view of their actual record in the use
of the school vote, I see no reason to think that women
would vote in sufficient numbers and with sufficient
regularity to improve politics or government.

The effect of woman suffrage upon the tax rate
must also be considered. If the good to be gained were
to justify the expense, there would be nothing to say;
but if not, then we ought to pause to give certain facts
some thought. Take the expenses for the primary and
state elections. The total cost to the Conmionwealth
in 1914, merely for the preparation, printing, and ship-
ping of ballots, was $50,046.17 (Auditor's Report,
1914, page 240). I am informed that if women were
given the ballot, a conservative estimate would add
60% to this figure. If women become candidates for
pubUc office, there would be the further expense of
handling the nomination papers. And these calculable
expenses are only a fraction of the total economic
loss.

The City of Lynn has the second largest voting list
in the state, outside of Boston. The expense now,
for the state and city election machinery and assist-
ants, is $9,000 a year, in round numbers. The amend-
ment would entail nearly double the expenditiu-e.
There are 53 cities and 320 towns in the state. Think
it over before it is too late. The financial side must

ANTI-SUFFRAGE ESSAYS 47

enter into the problem some time; isn't the present a
good time?

The milk question was referred to several times in
the recent campaign, the suffragists impljdng that the
Commonwealth was ignoring the need of legislation
and inspection. Here are some of the milk laws on
our statute books, that are administered by the State
Department of Health:

The Revised Laws, Chapter 56, provide:

Penalties for the sale of adulterated, diseased, or
skimmed milk.

Penalties for sale of milk not of good standard.

For the marking of skimmed milk.

For the marking of condensed milk.

Penalty for using counterfeit seal or tampering
with sample.

Penalty for connivance or obstruction.

For the sending of results of analysis to dealer.

That inspectors must act on information and evi-
dence.

The following acts are also in force:

To prohibit the misuse of vessels used in the sale
of milk (Acts 1906, chapter 116).

To establish a standard for cream (Acts 1907,
chapter 217).

To establish the standard of milk (Acts 1908,
chapter 643).

To provide for the proper marking of heated milk
(Acts 1908, chapter 570).

48 ANTI-SUFFRAGE ESSAYS

Relative to licensing dealers in milk (Acts 1909,
chapter 443).

To provide for the appointment of inspectors and
collectors of milk by Boards of Health (Acts 1909,
chapter 405).

Relative to the Uability of producers of milk
(Acts 1910, chapter 641).

To provide for the inspection and regulation of
places where neat cattle, their ruminants or swine are
kept (Acts 1911, chapter 381).

To authorize the incorporation of medical milk
conunissions (Acts 1911, chapter 506).

Relative to the establishing of milk distributing
stations in cities and certain towns (Acts 1911, chapter
278).

Relative to the labelling of evaporated, concen-
trated, or condensed milk (Acts 1911, chapter 610).

To regulate the use of utensils for testing the com-
position or value of milk and cream (Acts 1912, chap-
ter 218).

To safeguard the pubUc health against unclean
milk containers and appUances used in the treatment
and mixing of milk (Acts 1913, chapter 761).

Relative to the production and sale of milk (Acts
1914, chapter 744).

To prohibit charges for the inspection of Uve stock,
dairies, or farm buildings (Acts 1915, chapter 109).

The State is divided into eight health districts,
with an inspector for each in the State employ. Each
city has its board of health; each town administers

ANTIH3UFFRAGE E8BATS 49

the laws through its selectmen. The City of Lynn
has a board of health; also health inspectors, who
do much of their work before we are up — ^from 2 to
5 o'clock. They inspect all the milk stations; take
samples from milk wagons; inspect dairies that sell
milk in Lynn, wherever those dairies may be, even out
of the State — as, for instance, the Turner Centre
Creamery in Maine. All that doesn't look as if the
milk situation was being neglected.

Massachusetts is doing a great deal for the chil-
dren. There are over 5,800 wards in the care of the
State Minor Wards Department. I do not need to
tell you what a great work is being done for the care
and education of these Uttle ones; it speaks for itself.

Our opponents do not say much about the work
women are doing on State Boards. There are plenty
of positions already held by women who are doing in-
conspicuous and unexciting work, yet, nevertheless,
most useful to the Conamonwealth. Here are some of
them, with the number of women on each board:

The State Board of Health, Limacy and Charity
was organized in 1879, with 2 women on the board.
The work is now divided among different departments.

The State Board of Education had 1 woman mem-
ber as far back as 1880; it now has 2.

The State Board of Charity has 2.

The Free PubUc Library Conmiission has 2.

The Commission for the Blind has 2.

The Homestead Commission has 1.

The Minimum Wage Conunission has 1.

50 ANTI-SUFFRAGE ESSAYS

The Board of Registration of Nurses has 3.

The Prison Conunission has 2, who also serve on
the Board of Parole for the Reformatory for Women.

The Board of Trustees of the State Infirmary and
State Farm has 2.

The Board of Trustees of the Hospitals for Con-
sumptives has 1.

The State Hospitals at Worcester, Taunton, North-
ampton, Danvers, Westboro, Medfield, Monson, Bos-
ton, Foxboro, have 2 each.

The Gardner State Colony has 2.

The Wrentham State School has 2.

The Massachusetts Training School Trustees has
2.

The Massachusetts General Hospital has 1.

The Perkins Institution for the Blind has 1.

The Hospital Cottages for Children has 1.

Here are forty-five women doing volimtary work
on these Boards, all appointed by the Governor and
working under laws passed by the men in the Legisla-
ture.

Take another line. The manual of the labor laws
enforced by the State Board of Labor and Industries,
covers the enforcement of the laws relative to the edu-
cation of minors, employment of minors, hours of labor,
apprenticeship, hours of labor for women, health in-
spection, lighting, ventilation, cleanliness, guarding
against dangerous machinery, work in tenement
houses, etc.

The little book entitled "Woman Suffrage, History,

ANTI-SUFFRAGE ESSAYS 51

Arguments^ Results/' tells all about the suffrage
states and gives the good laws that have been enacted
since women voted. It gives the impression that
none such are passed in male suffrage States. It has
just two words about Massachusetts; under the head-
ing of ^'School Suffrage/' it says, ''Massachusetts
— 1879." Under Califomia, however, it gives a list of
the following laws and institutions:

Mothers' Pensions.

Minimum Wage.

Juvenile Coiurt.

State Training School for Girls.

Teachers' Pension.

Weights and Measures.

Civil Service.

State Housing Commission.

Milk Inspection.

Tuberculosis.

Workingmen's Compensation

Psychopathic Parole.
But it carefully omits to mention that Massachu-
setts has all of these, that some of them are much
broader in scope, and that many are of longer years
standmg.

You go into the Western States, and you find that
legislation is conducted on a different basis from what
it is in Massachusetts. Altogether too frequently,
bills are pigeon-holed; the bills can't be reported out
of committee unless the chairman consents; and the
result is that many bills never see the light. Here in

52 ANn-SUFFBAGE E8SATS

Massachusetts law-making is better managed. The
nimiber of bills presented is large; 3,459 were printed
during the session of 1914, and 2,802 were printed
during the last session. Some of these were offered
by women. A woman, as well as a man, can petition
the Legislature. Every bill is referred to a committee;
it is given a public hearing, is reported upon and ac-
tion taken, one way or another; not one bill is pigeon-
holed. The Massachusetts system of legislative pro-
cedure is not surpassed anywhere in the United States,
and there are competent boards and officers who carry
out the various laws. Many of the things the suffra-
gists agitate about and think they need the franchise
to bring to jpass, they would find are already being
administered at the present time if they would only
look into the facts.

HOW MASSACHUSETTS FOSTERS PUBLIC

WELFARE

MONICA FOLEY

Mis8 Monica Foley, was educated in the Boston
schools, graduating from the Boston Academy of Notre
Dame; is a member of (he Massachusetts Bar and Sec-
retary of the Massachusetts Association of Women Law-
yers. She is a director of the Notre Dame Alumni Assoct-
ation of Boston^ and is connected with the State Commis-
sion on Economy and Efficiency. J. A. H.

In the suffrage campaign just closed so much was
heard of the greatness of some of our states, including
Utah and Nevada, Colorado and Wyoming, that one
was tempted to inquire,''Is there no good now in Massa-
chusetts?" It seemed passing strange that our Com-
monwealth, which had always been the leader in every
great turning point of the policy of the nation, should
have so signally failed that it ceased to exist as a model
to be extolled; it was stranger still that her worthy
record was ignored by her own sons and daughters.
And yet the facts are that while we may hold high in
memory the examples of those who have gone before
us, we may also rejoice that the men of our own time

54 ANTI-SUFFRAGE ESSAYS

not only uphold the best ideals and lofty purposes of
our State, but are day by day working out her prob-
lems in such a way that her position is still secure as
& pioneer in sane legislation, her laws are still models
for all states (particularly woman suffrage states)
her name is still cherished in the wildernesses where
her sons are pioneers, still venerated on her own soil
where her people stand at the gateways and welcome
the oppressed.

Proud as we are of her traditions, glorying as we
do in her present achievements, we are unafraid that
the future will see her fall from her eminence, from the
dignity which has always characterized her statehood
and made her name a synonym for the best in govern-
ment in the nation, our Commonwealth of Massachu-
setts.

While this paper deals almost whoUy with the
executive functions of the state, to make do mention
of our judiciary would be to omit reference to one of
the brightest pages of our history, Massachusetts
law and Massachusetts judiciary decisions have always
been and are now quoted and respected in the greatest
courts of the country. This splendid system is being
maintained at an annual cost exceeding $600,000.

Hand in hand with the establishment of a great
judiciary system, Massachusetts has devoted herself
to the highest ideals of human charity, and her enor-
mous expenditures show that selfish materialism plays
no ptirt in her legislation. Year by year the calls for
charity are more insistent, and year by year the State

ANTI-SUFFRAGE ESSAYS 55

responds more generously. The State Board of Char-
ity was first organized in 1863, and at the present time
is an unpaid board of nine members, two of whom are
women. The institutions under their supervision are
governed by unpaid boards of seven members, two of
whom are women, this latter being provided by law,
except in the instance noted below. The institutions
under the supervision of the board are the State In-
firmary for the sick poor at Tewksbmy, and the State
Farm at Bridgewater for misdemeanants and insane
criminals, both opened in 1854 and costing the state
nearly $1,000,000 annually. The training schools for
delinquent children are the Lyman School for Boys
at Westborough (1848) and the Industrial School for
Boys at Shirley (1909) and for Girls at Lancaster
(1866) costing over $300,000 annually. The hospitals
for consumptives are located at Rutland (1898), North
Reading (1909), Lakeville and Westfield, both the
latter being opened in 1910. Upon these suffering
poor the State spends over a half milUon dollars each
year. The Norfolk State Hospital at Walpole was
opened in 1911 for inebriates and drug habitues. There
are no women on this board of trustees, there being
no women inmates of the hospital. There has also been
located at Canton since 1907 a Hospital School for
crippled children. A hospital for lepers has been main-
tained at Penikese Island since 1905.

Under the direction of the Board of Charity, aid
is given mothers with dependent children, the support
of poor babies is undertaken, and the tuition of poor

S6 ANTI-SUFFRAGE EBSATS

children is paid. The board places the children in
homes wherever possible — institutional life being ap-
proved only when necessary. Certain suffragista
(of the Socialist persuasion) would give the children to
the State under the new order. In 1914 the Board
together with the institutions under their direction
expended over three million dollars and cared for
more than 7000 persons in the institutions alone. Is
there anji,hing here in the State's charity work which
would make any woman other than proud of its record?

The State's care of her insane is under the direc-
tion of a paid board of three members, each hospital
having a board of seven unpaid trustees, including two
women. The hospitals for the insane are at Worcester
(1833), Boston (Dorchester, 1839), Tamiton (1854),
Northampton (1858), Danvers (1878), Westborough
(1886), Foxboro (1893) and Medford (1896), Gardner
(1902.) There is a hospital for epileptics at Monson
with schools for the feeble-minded at Waltham (1848),
with a colony at Tenipleton since 1900 and a school at
Wrentham (1907). In 1914 the State cared for over
14,000 of these unfortunates and expended over three
and one-quarter milUons of dollars for their mainten-
ance.

The reformatory and correctional work of the
Commonwealth (other than exercised over the training
schools) is under the direction of a board of five prison
commissioners (two women), only the chairman being
paid. Four institutions comprise this group; the State
Prison at Cbarlestown since 1805, but first established

ANTI-SUFFRAGE ESSAYS 57

in 1785; the Reformatory at Concord (1884); the
Women's Eeformatory at Sherborn (1877); and the
Prison Camp and Hospital at West Rutland, the camp
being opened in 1904, the hospital in 1907. Massa-
chusetts has the distinction of being the first state
in the union to separate its women offenders from the
men, by establishing the Sherborn Reformatory.
No child is born at this institution. A mere man a few
years ago, realizing the needless handicap an innocent
child would suffer through life if bom in a prison, pe-
titioned the legislature to prevent the possibility. A
law accordingly was passed, and these unfortunate
women are placed in a state hospital until after their
children are born. In 1914 over 1500 persons were
cared for in our prisons at a cost of more than a half
million dollars. Two boards of parole now study the
histories of prisoners and recommend certain persons
for parole, the men's board in addition recommends
persons to be pardoned to the governor and council.

In no other sphere of the State's activities is the
great throbbing heart of the Commonwealth shown
with such poignant fervor as m the case of her unfor-
tunates, and this phase of her work alone would entitle
her to the homage of all our people — but she does not
stop here. She dominates the educational field, and
stands preeminent before the nation and the world
for the superiority of her educational institutions.

Massachusetts has given abimdantly to the great
university at Cambridge, still endows freely the Mass-
achusetts Institute of Technology, and gives annually

ANTI-BUFFRAGK ESSAYS

of her funds to the Worcester Polytechnic Institute,
the Textile Schools at New Bedford, Lowell, and Fall
River, and other independent industrial schools. She
practically maintains the Agricultural College at Am-
herst, and gives to other agricultural schools, and also
aids certain cities and small towns.

In aiding the deaf, dumb, and blind in 1914, Massa-
chusetts spent over $200,000. In 1891 she opened a
nautical school to train her young men in seamanship,
navigation, and marine engineering. In 1839 Massa-
chusetts founded the first Normal school in this coun-
try, and today ten of these schools are open throughout
the State. In this line of endeavor in 1914 the State
expended over one and one-half millions of dollars.

The Commonwealth maintains a Department of
Health, established in 1869, expending in 1914 over
$350,000. In Massachusetts also was passed the Brst
pure food law in the country.

The MetrofKjlitan Water Works have cost the State
since 1901 over $50,000,000. Our park system is one
of the finest in the world, and is maintained at an
annual cost of over half a million dollars. In addition
to the parks in the Metropolitan District, there are
six other reservations throughout the State. These
parks represent an outlay of over $20,000,000.

Our Homestead Commission was established to
investigate defective housing conditions and study
building and tenement house laws. Its members are
unpaid, though the labor representative is reimbursed

ANTI-6UFFRAGE B8SAYS 59

for any loss he may suffer from absence from his reg-
ular occupation.

It can truly be said that no State in the union shows
such grateful and worthy appreciation to its veterans
as does Massachusetts. In 1914 over $700,000 was
given to the veterans of our Civil War and to certain
of their dependent relatives, and to women army
nurses. Under a special gratuities act of 1912 she gave
each Uving veteran of the war the sum of $125, this
one act alone costing over $500,000.

Among other of her good works, she appropriates
each year $15,000 for the relief of injured firemen and
families of firemen killed in the performance of their
duty, and since the fund was established has expended
$270,000 for this work. The State also provides under
a contributory system for its employes.

Nowhere in the country are the people's savings
and insurance more zealously guarded than by Massa-
chusetts, and here again she is leading the way in the
savings bank life insurance legislation. The bank com-
mission was established in 1838, the insurance com-
mission in 1855, the savings bank life insiu'ance board
in 1907, these three departments costing in 1914 almost
$200,000.

In dealing with her labor problems Massachusetts
maintains a Department of Labor and Industries
(1913) which investigates industrial conditions and
enforces the labor laws; an Industrial Accident Board
(1912) which enforces law compensating injured em-
ployes. These two boards together constitute a joint

ANTI-errfRAGE ESSAYS

board for the prevention of industrial accidents and
diseases. There is also a Board of Conciliation and
Arbitration (1886) which mediates and arbitrates in-
dustrial disputes, and a Minimum Wage Commission
(the first in the country) , which investigates the wages
of women and minors, and forms boards to recommend
scales of wages in low paid industries. Over $200,000
was expended by these boards in 1914.

On encouraging farming and caring for her forests
fisheries, and game, was spent over $600,000 in 1914.
This was distributed in many ways, some being in
form of bounties to children and youths, to agricultural
societies to encourage orcharding, poultry raising, for
the purchase of forest lands, the prevention of forest
fires, the propagation of wild birds and animals.

Preparedness was not overlooked, over half a million
dollars being expended on the militia in 1914, On high-
ways and harbors nearly a million dollars was spent.

Over a milli on and a quarter dollars was spent on
public buildings, the total valuation of state proper-
ties being over $8,300,000, the State capitol and land
itself being valued at over five and one-half million
dollars.

This is the record of Massachusetts. The suffra-
gists have shown wisdom in avoiding reference to these
facts. They could not well do otherwise, however,
since they are allied with those detestable groups in
our midst who are preaching anarchy and revolution
as a means to better government. Better government
where? This record is one that the men of the State

ANTI-SUPFRAGE ESSAYS 61

may well be proud of; it is a record that its women will
continue to make possible by their non-partisan in-
fluence in government, by the training of its future
citizens, by the teaching of those lessons of civic hon-
esty and uprightness that make for national integrity
as exemplified in the history of our Conunonwealth of
Massachusetts.

MASSACHUSETTS COMPARED WITH
SUFFRAGE STATES

CATHERINE BOBINSON

Miss Catherine Robinson was a student at Raddiffe
in 1911; graduated from Miss Wheelock's Kinder-
garten Training School in 1916; has worked two winters
among the children in the cotton mills of Georgia, and
has been affiliated with Neighborhood House in East
Boston, and with the Associated Charities in the Co-oper-
alive Workrooms, She is now connected with the Social
Service Department of the Massachusetts General Hos-
pital, her work being in the Orthopaedic Clinic for Chil-
dren. Miss Robinson was formerly a suffragist, but
after studying the question decided thai the suffragists'
claims are illusions which never become realities. She
says: ''Everything I do along these lines (Social Service)
convinces me more than ever whal a detriment the vote
would be to our sex." J. A. H.

Not long ago I heard Dr. Anna Howard Shaw, the
President of the National Woman Suffrage Associa-
tion, say at Springfield:

''Laws have nothing to do with this question of
woman suffrage; facts have nothing to do with it. I

ANTI-SUFFRAGE ESSAYS 63

shall not answer facts. We do not promise to do great
things for women; why should we? All we ask is the
right to vote."

All suffrage speakers are not so frank about their
inabiUty to answer facts as Dr. Shaw is, nor do they
cease from claiming that good laws for women exist
chiefly in suffrage states.

Massachusetts gives to her women the best pro-
tection of any state in the Union. In January, 1915,
New York ranked first, but since our legislative enact-
ments of 1915, Massachusetts is again in the lead. We
have, in the first place, the Maternity Act. Then we
have the law prohibiting women in industry from work-
ing more than fifty-four hours per week. We have
the absolute prohibition of night-work for our women
in textile, mercantile, and manufacturing establish-
ments. We are one of the five states in the Union to
have such a law. All the five states are male suffrage
states. Not a single woman suffrage state prohibits
the night employment of its women; and yet among
the laws safeguarding the health of women workers, the
prohibition of night work is of the most fundamental
importance.

Some women suffrage states do not even set a limit
to the hours a woman may work. In Wyoming, Ne-
vada, and Kansas — ^all woman suffrage states, you note
— there is no limitation of hours of labor and no prohi-
bition of night work. Some one may say that Colo-
rado, California, Oregon and Washington have an eight-
hour limitation. They have; but in each case the can-

64 ANTIHSUFFRAGE ESSAYS

neries are excepted, so that in those states where the
cannery busmess is of vast importance, the women
therein employed may work any nmnber of hom^ and
any time of the day or night. Not long ago in New
York a similar law was proposed, aUowing women and
children to work seventy-two hours a week in canneries,
but the bill was defeated. Colorado, to be sure, has
the eight-hour law, but it does not prohibit night work
for women, so that the eight hours can be at night;
neither does Colorado require one day of rest in every
seven. In Massachusetts and New York there is a law
specifically requiring one day of rest in every seven for
employees in factories, workshops, and all mercantile
establishments.

Another way in which we can protect women is by
early closing hours, and prohibition of work before a
certain hour in the morning. Again we find that it is
in the male suffrage states that women have acquired
such protection, for New York sets an early closing
hour of 5 p. m. for her women in factories, mercantile,
and manufacturing estabUshments, and Massachusetts
sets 6 p. m. Fourteen other male suffrage states set
10 p. m. as the closing hour; and all these states pro-
hibit work before 6 a. m. What do we find in the woman
suffrage states? Simply that out of the eleven suffrage
states, one state, California, sets a 10 p. m. limit, but
it does not apply to canneries.

As women enter fiu1;her into the industrial field,
more and more laws are made for their protection.
The men have done wonderfully for our women. When-

ANTI-SUFFRAGE ESSAYS 65

ever the public conscience is aroused to the need of a
law, that law is passed. Women do much, in fact, nearly
everything, towards arousing that public conscience,
but we find when we study the laws as they exist in our
state that our men have made better laws for the pro-
tection of our women than the men and women have
made together in any suffrage state. Let me add
some of the other good laws we have in Massa-
chusetts. We have the Mothers' Pension Bill. This
law was originated by a man in a male suffrage state.
We have the Equal Guardianship Law. There are
suffrage states where neither of these laws exist.

Not long ago Mrs. Maud Wood Park, asserted
that I was misstating the laws in suffrage states. She
said I did not know the happenings in the legislature
this year. I have made a careful study of the laws
proposed and the action taken upon them in the eleven
suffrage states and the four big "campaign states"
in the legislative year of 1915. I find that while in
Massachusetts we enacted five new laws relating to our
women and children assuring them of still greater pro-
tection and better pubUc health regulations, Arizona
turned down five laws for women which already exist
here in our own state. I was imable to find any suffrage
state which could compare in any favorable way with
the progress Massachusetts has made. Wyoming
turned down a bill regulating the employment of chil-
dren and a bill limiting the hours a woman may work.
As long as I have mentioned Arizona, let me continue
the comparison one step further and point out that on

66 ANTIHSUFFBAGE ESSATS

the 16th of February, 1915, Mrs. Berry, an Arizona
suffragist, introduced a biU regulatmg and grantmg
teachers' pensions. The biU was indefinitely post-
poned. In the same year Massachusetts women teach-
ers introduced a bill asking to have their former pen-
sions granted again to them. At the same time the
men teachers introduced a similar bill; and it is an
interesting fact that the men were turned down, while
the women's bill was signed by the Governor. For our
suffrage friends who say that women must have the
ballot to be listened to, this is rather a stumbling block.
I happened to be up at the State House the day the
bill went through, and heard one of the women who was
interested say: "It's a mighty lucky thing we women
did not have the vote." This is the latest example of
what Massachusetts men are interested in doing for
Massachusetts women. Let us voice our just pride
that Massachusetts touches the high water mark of
protective legislation and stands as an example to all
other states.

VII

WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND WAR

MRS. CHARLES P. STRONG

Mary B. Strong, widow of Dr. Charles P. Strong of
the Harvard Medical School; studied for three years at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology; former Presi-
dent of the Saturday Morning Club; Vice-President of
the Cambridge Indian Association; Corresponding
Secretary of the Massachusetts Women^s Anti-Suffrage

Association, J. A. H,

When the great European war broke out in 1914,
the suffragists tried to use the situation to further
their propaganda. They remind me of the mad philo-
sopher who suggested it would be well to profit by an
eruption of Vesuvius in order to boil an egg.

The incongruity of suffragists attempting to pose
as a peace party is obvious to anyone with a memory
and a sense of humor. Before the war broke out, Ameri-
can suffrage leaders were applauding, feasting, and sub-
sidizing the British virago who instigated the setting on
fire of 146 pubUc buildings, churches, and houses, the ex-
plosion of 43 bombs, the destruction of property valued
at nearly two miUion dollars (not including priceless

1-BUFFRAGE ESSAYS

workB of arts), and many eases of
In 1912 they justified the destruction of the Rokeby
Venus; in 1914 they professed horror at the bombard-
ment of the Cathedral of Rheims. Is this insincerity
or hypocrisy, or mere aberration of mind?

The best time to work for peace is before war
breaks out. The suffrage organization was not con-
spicuous in seizing the many opportunities for further-
ing the cause of peace before it was too late. In 1911
Mrs. Frederick Nathan, a prominent suffragist, was
asked to contribute to the American Society for the
Judicial Settlement of Disputes. She sent the follow-
ing characteristic refusal :

"Mrs. Frederick Nathan prefers to give her money
to the Woman Suffrage Association. . . . She has no
faith in Courts of Law and Equity which deny justice
to women."

Was this boycotting of the peace movement con-
demned by the suffragists? Not at all; Miss Alice
Stone BlackweU, President of the Massachusetts Suf-
frage Association, was glad to print the refusal in the
official organ of the National Woman Suffrage Associa-
tion. Miss BlackweU, in holding up this example to its
members, scornfuUy declared that several of the peace
society were "prominent opponents of equal rights for
women." In those days, the suffragists were not hitch-
ing their wagon to the quiet star of peace; it has been
their constant practice to attach themselves, for public-
ity's sake, to whatever movement is conspicuous on the
front pages of the newspapers — eugenics, or sex drama,

ANTIH3UFFRA.GE ESSAYS 69

or red-light abatement, or what not — ^and to abandon
that ephemeral mterest whenever it has ceased to serve
the pm'pose of advertisement.

And so, when the war broke out, the boycotters of
peace societies, and colleagues of militants, made a
rapid shift of costumes, and tried to play roles in
the Woman's Peace Party. So hurried was their change
of mental attitude that their thoughts on the subject
were splendid instances of snap judgment.

In truth, the breaking out of the war was most
embarassing to them. like a bull in a china shop, the
rush of brutal fact destroyed many of their pretty
theories. The stereotyped suffrage answer, when anti-
suffragists pointed out that physical force was the
fundamental basis of government, had been that this
was no longer true. For example. Dr. Mary Putnam
Jacobs, speaking of women's demand for the ballot,
said, about 1895: ''Women could not claim the ballot
while it was necessary to defend opinions by arms, but
this is no longer necessary or expected." And Mrs.
Susan Fitzgerald in 1912 declared: "The age of the
fighting man is passing. The world is coming to be
ruled by intellect." When will the suffragists learn
Lowell's maxim: "Don't never prophesy — onless ye
know!" It is, however, a characteristic of professional
false prophets not to lose their imperturbality and ef-
frontery, but to trust that their followers will forget
their mistaken guesses and listen open-mouthed to a
new dispensation.

The essential dogma of the Woman's Peace Party

70 ANTI-SUFFRAGE ESSAYS

(none but suffragists admitted!) was that the adoption
of woman suffrage was a necessary and effectual step
toward abolishing war. "If women had had the vote
in all countries now at war," said Mrs. Catt, "the con-
flict would have been prevented." History shows
women at least as much inclined to war as men — ^a fact
illustrated in the French Revolution, in our Civil War,
in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71, and in other
instances too niunerous to mention. The suffragists,
ignorant of that fact, or ignoring it, advanced in sup-
port of their proposition a series of specious arguments
designed to catch popular opinion. Of these arguments
two were at the outset of the movement especially
harped upon: (1) the alleged "international soUdarity
of women," and (2) the supposed likelihood of woman's
opposition to militarism.

What was meant by the "solidarity of women"
is explained in Mrs. Pethick Lawrence's words: "The
interests of women, being fundamentally the same,
are so universal that no national distinctions can
cut deeply into them, as may possibly sometimes
happen with the national distinctions between men."
Following that notion. Dr. Anna Howard Shaw issued
an appeal to the women's organizations in the belliger-
ent countries, urging them to put a stop to the war.
The replies received showed that the expected "inter-
national solidarity of women" was imaginary. The
Association of Austrian Women's Clubs, for ex-
ample, replied that nobody imderstanding the
causes of the war, would have addressed such a request

ANTI-SUFFRAGE ESS8AY 71

to them. "Being women of those comitries/' ran this
reply, "where om* husbands, brothers, and sons are
fighting for the existence or non-existence of our state,
for om* homes, for their wives and children, we can-
not say; 'Do not fight'!'' Similarly, the women's
societies of France refused to accept any invitations
to peace palavers. In short, the real "solidarity"
was discovered to exist, not between women of differ-
ent nations, but between the women and the men of
each nation.

The falsity of the other argument — that woman
suffrage would tend against militarism — was crush-
ingly refuted when Dr. Ernest Bembaum drew atten-
tion to the recent history of militaristic policies in
England and Australia. In male suffrage England,
Lord Roberts, despite his personal popularity and
strong arguments, was xmable to get sufficient support
for his program of imiversal military service. In wo-
man suffrage Australia and New Zealand, on the other
hand, the same line of arguments was completely suc-
cessful by 1911. There, boys from their twelfth year
are required to be enrolled for instruction in drill and
the rudiments of military science. The penalties for
failure are severe, and public opinion supports their
enforcement; in New Zealand a boy was sent to jail
for refusing service, on ground of conscientious scruples;
another was fined and went into exile. The electorate
was determined that New Zealand and Australia
should be nations in arms; indeed they were more
drastic than Germany, where many exemptions from

ANTI-BUPFRAQE ES8AT8

military service on various groundfl are allowed. It
is ioatructive to recall that when in March, 1914,
Winston Churchill, Lord of the Admiralty, advised
Austraha that, in view of the Japanese alliance, it did
not need to spend as much money on warships, the
Austrahan statesmen frankly intimating their dis-
trust in alliances, declared they would proceed with
their expensive naval program, which was supported
by both poUtical parties, I do not say that what is
termed "miUtarism" is a bad policy; I do say that when
the suffragists state that woman suffrage tends against
mihtarism they state what is diametrically opposed to
the real truth of history. In this case, as usual, they
draw their principles not from observation of what is
happening but from what they wish and fancy would
happen.

The theories of the Suffrage Woman's Peace Party
being false, it is not surprising that their actions prove
bewilderingly futile. They brought together a group
of "hand-picked" delegates, quite unrepresentative of
the real sentiment of the nations they were nominally
representing, and forgathered in a ao-called Woman's
Peace Conference at the Hague. Miss Jane Addams
supplied the American press with rose-colored accounts
of its proceedings. Her reports were justly condemned
by the New York Times as bad journalism, because
they did not "tell the whole of the truth." They were
calculated to give the impression that the Conference
was harmonious, and that its deUberations led to really
practicable conclusions. Not to conceal the truth, it

ANTI-SUPPRAGE ESSAYS 73

must be said, that these pacific ladies, who surely
ought in their own circle to have exhibited that "in-
ternational solidarity" which the sex as a whole had
failed to manifest, soon developed sharp antipathies.
One of the few British delegates who went to the con-
ference (need it be said she was not Mrs. Pankhurst?)
disturbed its complacency by reminding those present
that they really did not represent the sentiments of the
warring nations. When it came to discussing the actual
situation and specific terms of peace, there arose strong
differences of opinion— along national lines. The chief
resolution offered,— that peace should be made without
delay, — could not be passed until an amendment,
adding the words "with justice," was accepted,— words
which each belligerent would interpret in a different
manner. Needless to say, the amendment rendered
the high-sounding resolution a useless mass of ambig-
uous words.

Equally futile were the subsequent travels of the
delegates of the Woman's Peace Party. At a time when
the energy and money of every woman should have
been whole-heartedly devoted to practical deeds of
charity, these misguided women wasted their means
and strength in fool's journeys to the capitals of all
the great nations. They made proposals for immediate
peace negotiations, which were listened to with more
patience and politeness than their amateurish charac-
ter deserved, but which were of course without excep-
tion pigeon-holed.

Having moved the nations to mirth by one modern

74 ANTI-SUFFRAGE ESSAYS

version of "Innocents Abroad," the suffragists appear
to have thought it a good advertisement to send forth a
second. This time they attempted to screen them-
selves behind the figure of Mr. Henry Ford, wearing a
celluloid button, "Out of the Trenches by Christmas!"
But when a man acts with apparently inexplicable
foolishness, it is generally safe to say, ^'Cherchez la
femmer^ In this case, the truth presently came out:
the unfortimate Mr. Ford was merely the "angel" of
the new travelling troupe. It was Mme. Schimmer,
professional suffragist-pacificist, who had persuaded
him to laimch his argosy. As Mr. Ford himself
confessed on his ignominious return, he was "simply
backing up and financing the plans of the Woman's
Peace Congress." The second expedition, like the
first, developed an astounding fighting spirit among
the peace delegates, and accomplised nothing. (It
is worth noting that woman-suffrage Denmark pro-
hibited the party from holding any pubUc meetmgs.)
There is a lamentable as well as ridiculous aspect
of the suffragists' activity in connection with the peace
movement. Their intrusion into the pacificist camp
has brought discredit not only upon themselves, but
upon every pacificist. If the word "pacificist" today
suggests to most men an ecstatic, irresponsible dreamer,
it is they who are to blame. The sane pacificist, whose
patient labors are directed toward unsensational and
unspectacular, slow but sure, organization of friendly
relations to be gradually made closer and closer, realizes
that his task is a complicated one, not to be solved by

ANTI-SUFFRAGE ESSAYS 76

emotionalism, but by calm reasoning and patient ad-
justment. He realizes that many different functions
must be brought into co-operation before the likelihood
of war can be reduced. His noble work is in danger of
being thought ridiculous because of the meddling of
suffrage fanatics.

The present war, instead of justifying the suffragist
theory, has refuted it. It has vindicated the position
of the anti-suffragists.

What is the chief lesson of the great war? It has
shown that international law and treaties are so weak
as to be useless, unless there is physical force to en-
sure their not being violated. What anti-suffragists
have always maintained in national government
has proved true in international relations. Any
law that is made by those unable to support it through
force of arms will sooner or later become a "scrap of
paper." Consequently the most sanely progressive
step in the peace movement is the formation by men
like Mr. Taft, and Mr. A. Lawrence Lowell, (both
anti-suffragists, by the way) of a league to enforce
peace, which aims to give international law the sanction
not only of world-wide opinion, but of the irresistible
power of the united armed forces of the great nations.
That is the work of men toward world peace.

What is the work of women? In this field as in all
others, it is not to try to compel, but to educate and
civilize, to create in the children committed to her care
an intelligent love for fair play, justice, and self-con-
trol. The suffragist is an enemy to the diffusion of the

76 ANTI-SUFFRAGE ESSAYS

peace spirit, because she would force women into poKti-
cal warfare, where contention is bred. She closes her
eyes to woman's greatest opportunity for diminishing
the spirit of belligerency — ^that of keeping one of the
sexes out of the bitter strife of partisan politics. The
anti-suffragist, asking that the mothers of men may be
left free to develop the milder attributes of character,
has the true vision of the road that leads to lasting
peace.

VIII

WOMAN SUFFRAGE VS. WOMANLINESS

MBS. THOMAS ALLEN

Alice Ranney Allen, wife of Thomas Allen;
member of the Womxm^s Municipal League, in which she
was the organizer of the Department of Streets and Alleys;
member of the WomarCs Education Associaiion; reader
of the Committee on Selection of Fiction for Libraries;
Chairman of Boston Committee on the work of District
Nursing in the mountains of North Carolina; a well-
known speaker against woman suffrage. J. A. H.

To me the chief reason why political duties should
not be imposed on women is the effect that this pre-
liminary dip into politics, this struggle for votes-for-
women, is having on the women themselves. It is
siu-ely not making them any more lovely, or pleasant
in their Uves. They grow bitter, aggressive, and an-
tagonistic, liking the excitement of campaigning and
finding their natural, proper duties "flat, stale, and
unprofitable."

Speaking from platforms and being constantly in
the public eye, does not improve women. We anti-
Buffra^sts have taken part m a poUtical campaign to

78 ANTH5UFFRA.GE ESSAYS

keep ourselves out of polities for the rest of our lives,
and to keep our daughters out of politics, but we know
that in a proper division of duty we have better work
to do along civic, sanitary, and philanthropic lines,
and in our homes, than to be, as our Western sisters
are, out campaigning for candidates, and engaged in
struggles for political supremacy.

Anyone may gauge the bitterness of the recent
campaign if he remembers the abuse heaped on the
anti-suffragists by the President of the National
Suffrage Association; and we must judge every move-
ment by its leaders. Dr. Anna Howard Shaw, at a
hearing before the Senate Committee at Washington,
said:

''We are not afraid of the body of women who are
gomg up and down the land opposing suffrage. They
are just enough in number so that by holding out their
skirts they can make a screen for the men operating
dens of vice and iniquity and prostitution to hide be-
hind."

In an interview printed in the New York Sun, Dr.
Shaw referred to the anti-suffrage leaders as "vul-
tures looking for carrion.''

As important a person as Dean Thomas, of Bryn
Mawr College, in an appeal for funds for the National
American Woman Suffrage Association in February,
1913, said:

''The ballot for women is the greatest of all the
modem reforms. We urge those who are today con-
tributing to other causes to withdraw or curtail their

ANTI-SUFFRAGE ESSAYS 79

contributions until the ballot for woman is secured."
This seems to us anti-suflfragists extremely narrow,
as we know that woman suffrage is not a reform, but
an experiment in legislation only.

In a public resolution passed by the New England
Women's Suffrage Association at its forty-seventh an-
nual meeting, the anti-suffragists were referred to as
using "pole-cat" tactics — why, we do not know. These
are only a few of the many evidences of the bitterness
of feeling in this political campaign.

The whole ideal of womanhood seems to be chang-
ing. The wife of an editor of our most important New
England magazine said to me:

"What use is it for you to oppose the suffrage move-
ment, when it is only the first step in this larger move-
ment for the emancipation of women that is sweeping
over the world?" And I said: "Then we will do our
best to stop the first step," for I remembered the doc-
trines of the suffrage leaders preached from their
platforms. Mrs. Ida Husted Harper has said: "There
is not a single forward step of woman that has not been
blocked by the words 'wifehood' and 'motherhood'."

Dean Thomas, in an address to women at Mount
Holyoke College, is quoted in Mr. Martin's book,
Ttie Unrest of Women, as saying: "Women may have
spent half a lifetime in fitting themselves for a scholar's
work, and then may be asked to choose between it
and marriage. No one can estimate the niunber of
women who remain unmarried in revolt before such a
horrible alternative."

80 ANn-BUFKRAGE B88AT8

Dr. Stanton C<»t is reported as saying from a suf-
frage platform /'Wifehood has all the characteristics
of slavery — ^work without wage; no specified hours;
no ri^t to change employers/'

We find constantly the evil influence that this first
step of suffrage is having on the young women of our
day; and, to me, the gist of the whole matter seems
summed up in a paragraph from a pamphlet written
by Mr. Joseph Pyle:

"With Christianity there came into the world a
new example and a new thought. To woman's whole
nature appealed that life of self-sacrifice, of love, and
of willing service that has created a new Heaven and a
new earth. From the foot of the Cross there arose and
went out into the world a womanhood that did not
demand, or claim, or threaten, or arrogate; a woman-
hood renouncing, yielding, loving, and, therefore,
conquering. For twenty centuries that has been the
law of woman's life. It is sneered at and rejected to-
day by the clamorous, but it has made of woman what
we now find her. You see it in yoiu* mothers, your
daughters, your wives. Do you wish to have that
ideal changed? Woman has become to man not only
a companion, but an inspiration. Out of the crucible
of the centuries has come what we not only love but
adore; before which, in certain hours, we bow with a
reverence that links us unconsciously with the Divine.
It is Christian civilization that is in the balance."

ABE SUFFRAGISTS SINCERE REFORMERS?

MBS. AUGUSTINE H. PABKEB

Caroline M. Parker^ wife of Augustin H. Parker;
was educated in the Boston schools; is a member of the
Dover Grange; Vice-President of the Unitarian Alliance
of Dover; for five years President of the Vincent Club.

J, A, H.

If the energy and vast sums of money squandered
to promote suffrage in this country had been expended
to bring about the reforms which the suffragists claim
will be at once brought about by their votes, the re-
forms would aU have been accomplished long ago. But
do the suffragist leaders care a jot about the reforms?
We hear of a Seattle woman who, now that she can
vote in her own city, leaves home and husband to
come East and agitate for suffrage. Little does she
care that her husband sues for divorce on the ground
of desertion. It is the excitement of agitation that she
craves — ^the duties and responsibilities of the ballot
are of no interest whatsoever to her.

A mayor in a city near Boston appointed a suffragist
on the city planning board. Did she eagerly grasp the

82 AKn-SUFFBAGE ESSAYS

chance to plan the city so that it should be a joy and
a blessing to its inhabitants for all time? Not at all.
/She said that the mayor did not consult her, that she
had not even known there was a city planning board,
and that she would not think of serving on it in any

Through the Civic Federation, the Municipal
Leagues, and the Women's Clubs, an enormous amount
of work for the good of all has been undertaken; but
the suffrage members of these associations far from
welcoming all public spirited workers, attempt to make
the belief in woman suffrage the test of a worker's
value, and introduce party politics and petty strife
into these great, non-partisan bodies of women, thereby
impairing their services to the Conmionwealth to
such an extent that the eyes of many women have
been opened to what the state of affairs would be if
all women were in politics. It is not too much to say
that many women, hitherto indifferent on the suffrage
question, have been aroused by such interested and
partisan methods into joining the anti-suffrage cause.

There is more work waiting to be done than there
are workers to do it. Ministers are constantly asking
from the pulpit for workers. There are more offices
open to women now than there are women to fill them,
but they are the offices that mean hard work and no
notoriety, and these are not what most of the feminist-
suffrage leaders are looking for. These feminists tell
you constantly how badly the men manage the country;
the idea being how much better the women would

ANTI-SUFFRAGE ESSAYS 83

govern it. But would they? The anti-suffragists think
that, on the whole, the men are doing well, and that a
government ought to be in the hands of those who have
the power to enforce the laws they make. To have
responsibility without power is to be in a very uncom-
fortable and ignominious position. To the observer
it seems that the professional suffrage agitator is not
out for service or the good of her town, state, and coun-
try, but for her own good. This is so obvious that her
self-assertion is not convincing. It is through service
and not by self-assertion that true women contribute
their best work to their coimtry.

Because they are unconvinced by the feminist's
protestations, few women care to be represented by
other women. Approximately half the stock of the
Pennsylvania Railroad is owned by women. They
could elect several women directors if they wished to
do so, but the board is composed entirely of men.
Women do not as a rule, employ other women to take
care of their business affairs.

We anti-suffragists ask to be left free from the use-
less turmoil of partisan politics so that we may employ
what time and strength we have in the service of those
who need them most. We do not care to waste them
in the petty personal struggles of the political arena —
we can well afford to let the men fight the battles and
crowd the polling booths because we in our own places
and to the full extent of our power, have an equally
valuable contribution to make to the welfare of the
nation.

84 ANTIHSUFFRAGE ESSAYS

The help of all good women is now at the service
of the men who have the nations' welfare at heart,
nor are they hampered by the interference of the less
good as they must be when the vote of the best might
be nullified by the vote of the worst.

We beg the men not to be deceived by the noise
and clatter of a few paid professional agitators, sup-
ported by misguided enthusiasts whose hearts are
larger than their heads; and we ask the men to help us
to uphold the womanhood of woman with all its respon-
sibilities, its ideals, and its spiritual endowment.

SUFFRAGE AND THE SCHOOL TEACHER

ELIZABETH JACKSON

Elizabeth Jackson graduated from the Bridgewater
High School in 1908, from the Bridgewater State Normal
School in 1910, from Radcliffe College A. B. (Summa
cum laude) 1918, A. M, 1914; is a candidate for the de-
gree of Ph. D,; treasurer of Raddiffe Chapter of Phi
Beta Kappa 1914-16; President of the Raddiffe Grad-
uates' Club, 1915-16. J. A. H.

An essential weakness in the suffrage argument is
the failure to distinguish between government and
culture, the fimctions and the instruments of each.
Government is an organization for compelling one
portion of the community to do the will of another
portion. In a democracy, the minority is forced to obey
the majority. The fundamental idea is compulsion, a
thing not lovely in theory and frequently unlovely in
practice. The golden haze that surrounds the dream
of ideal democracy is dissipated by contact with any
given city ward. The machmery of government is a
matter of stress and strain; of selfishness, cruelty, and
hate, at the worst; at best, of conflicting interest,

86 ANTI-SUFFRAGE ESSAYS

mutual incomprehension, and maddening friction.
When we refer to good government, we may mean
either of two things. We may perhaps describe a
community where the majority is notably successful
in imposing its will on the minority so that laws are
strictly enforced and scrupulously obeyed. In my ex-
perience, this is not the sense in which the suffragist
uses the phrase. Woman suffrage is not advertised as
a means of producing a more tractable minority. On
the contrary, as Mr. Taft has pointed out, the suffrage
movement is a conspicuous instance of one great menace
of the age, the unwillingness of minorities to abide by
the best judgment of the state as a whole. Again, the
campaign orator does not assure the Maine audience
that under equal suffrage statewide prohibition, in-
stituted by male voters, will become a fact instead of a
joke; no speaker in our home town has informed us
that woman's vote will wipe out the saloons that defy
the ''no" of the March meeting. Rather, as I
understand it, the "good government" which the suf-
fragist promises to inaugurate consists of improved
legislation along certain specific lines. That is to say,
she promises not that the laws will be better enforced,
but that they will be different. A conmiunity's pre-
dilection for good laws or bad, however, depends
not on government but on civilization. PubUc opinion
is moulded by innumerable forces, of which the home,
the church, the newspaper, and the pubUc school are
merely illustrations. In most if not all of these, women
already play a conspicuous part; through them they

ANTI-SUFFRAGE ESSAYS 87

wield an incalculable power. The confusion, uncon-
scious or otherwise, of these forces of cultiu*e and the
forces of government, is one of the prime fallacies of
the suffrage position.

To make the true state of the case more clear, take
a single institution, the public school, with its various
bearings on the question of woman suffrage. Pass over
the school committee vote which only about two per
cent of Massachusetts women regulariy use, and con-
sider merely the power which the very nature of our
school system puts in women's hands. All the children
in our primary grades, and aU but an infinitesimal
fraction of those in the grammar grades, are taught by
women. The preponderance of woman teachers is
nearly as great in the high schools where, except in a
few cities, men are employed for a,dministration and
discipline and only secondarily for instruction. That
is to say, women and not men are shaping the minds
of future voters during the formative and decisive
years. From women rather than men, our children
learn the elements of good citizenship, — ^respect for
public property, obedience to law, and the power of
independent thought.

The degree to which the lesson is learned, depends
upon two things; namely, the quality of the teacher
and the extent of her influence. Accordingly, two ques-
tions arise. Would woman suffrage give us better
teachers? Would it increase the power which they
already hold? One may get some light on the first
point by studying the placmg of normal school grad-

88 ANTI-SUFFRAGE ESSAYS

uats. The connection between the schools and poli-
tics is already lamentably close. Many districts, with
administrations predominantly of one party or relig-
ious sect choose first teachers of that sect, good or bad,
and sisters and daughters of voters of that party;
then enough women to complete the necessary number.
Suppose that the teacher, instead of being the daughter
of the voter, holds the vote herself. The evil would be-
come imiversal. There is no indication that a woman's
salary and position under such circumstances be more
directly conditioned upon her abilities as a teacher.
The chances are that woman suffrage would tend to
make the school more truly the servant of the party in
power than of the general good. Moreover, a vote can
be used as a commodity of exchange; and the woman-
voter who amid the fluctuations of city politics would
protect her position by a shrewd use of her ballot would
hardly be the best school mistress of American youth.
The effect of suffrage upon the teacher's influence
in the schoolroom would not be beneficial. Her treat-
ment of some subjects, like grammar, nature study,
and raflSa work, would of course remain unchanged.
It has, however, been said by suffragists that her dis-
cussion of civic problems would be more intelligent.
Would her judgments be cooler because she is in the
thick of the fight, and her statements more convincing
because she is in direct conflict with the fathers and
mothers of half her class? It is of the utmost import-
ance that the child shall look upon the teacher as im-
partial. He may consider her in some respects his

ANTIHSUFFRAGB ESSAYS 89

natural enemy, but he must none the less regard her
as one of the inmiutable things of the imiverse. For
this reason pubKc commotions over school affairs,
however well intentioned, injure the institutions they
design to benefit. Anything which tends to increase the
possibility of opposition between the teacher and the
child's family, and makes the child's attitude partisan
is a menace. Suffrage in this field as in so many others,
offers no compensation for the increased friction and
unrest.

SUFFRAGE AND THE SOCIAL WORKER

DOROTHY GODFREY WAYMAN.

Dorothy Godfrey Wayman, wife of C. S. Wayman;
was educated at Bryn Mawr and at the School for Social
Workers in Boston, lias done organized charity and setUe"
ment work in Fitchburg and Boston; was for one year state
organizer of the Massachusetts Womans' Anti-Suffrage
Association; is a member of Massachusetts Civic Leagues.

J. A. H.

Among people who have what has been called "the
sheep type of mentality," it is frequently asserted that
since Miss Jane Addams, Miss Julia Lathrop, Dr.
Katherine Davis, and other "servants of humanity"
are suffragists, it follows that all women should become
suffragists. Such people do not, however, carry this
line of thought to its logical conclusion; for even they
do not consider themselves bound to become Pro-
gressives because that is Miss Addams's pohtical party,
nor to become members of her church/

This argumentum ad hominem has great weight in
the suffrage propaganda, and it is high time that it
should be considered less superficially. Having been

ANTI-SUFFRAGE ESSAYS 91

a social worker myself in a large city, I have been much
interested in the history and career of such workers,
and find therein one of the most positive anti-suffrage
arguments.

It is a striking fact that the very women whom
suffragists use as personal exhibits accomplished the
social work that won them fame, under male suffrage.
Conversely, in the long list of women's names honored
for their social service, not one of national reputation
earned that reputation in a woman suffrage state.

The National Institute of Social Science awards a
gold medal for distinction in social service. Men like
William H. Taft and Charles W. Eliot have been
thus decorated. Miss Jane Addams, Miss Lillian D.
Wald of the Henry Street Nurses' Settlement in New
York, Miss Mabel Boardman of the National Red
Cross, and Miss Anne Morgan of New York are the
women who have been presented with this medal in
past years.

On February 25, 1915, the National Institute of
Social Sciences conferred this medal for distinction
in social service upon Miss Louisa Schuyler of New
York City. In a long life of useful citizenship, though
unblessed by the ballot, Miss Schuyler has contrived
to inaugurate several undertakings and lived to see
them grow, till from radical innovations, they have
become the groundwork of much of our modern charity.
Miss Schuyler discovered the shocking conditions pre-
vailing in almshouses fifty years ago, and organized a
series of volunteer visiting conunittees which eventually

ANTI-fiUFFRAGE ESSAYS

became the N. Y. State Charities' Aid Association, with
headquarters in New York City. Miaa Schuyler was
the organizing genius of the Bellevue Visiting Commit-
tee, which from visiting the poorhouses of Westchester
County, progressed to the establishment of the first
training school for nurses in this country. Trained
nurses have come to be such a necessity today, that I
imagine few suffragists reaUze that they are indebted
to one woman's initiative for the ministrations of
skilled hands that so often may mean the difference
between life and death. Today there are 1100 training
schools for nurses, whose existence can be traced to
the ideas of a woman hving and working in a male
suffrage state. Another feat, more political in its as-
pects, accompUshed by Miss Schuyler was the inaugura-
tion of the system now in force of State care for the
insane, and of the removal of insane persons and chil-
dren from the physically and morally degrading at-
mosphere of the almshouse where they were formerly
cared for. In 1908, Miss Schuyler grappled with an-
other of our great modem problems and organized the
first committee in this country, composed of physiciana
and laymen, for the prevention of bUndness. What a
long way behind the world would be today if Miss
Schuyler had done as Dr. Anna Howard Shaw, and
devoted her great organizing genius to sufifrage propa-
ganda!

Miss Jane Addams' achievements in Chicago at
Hull House, are too widely known to require any e
eratioD, but I would emphasize the fact that her work

ANTIHSUPFRAGB ESSAYS 93

was done while Illinois was still a male suffrage state.
In Twenty Years at Hull HoiLsej which was pub-
lished in 1910, three years before women attained par-
tial enfranchisement in Illinois, Miss Addams gives her
estimate of the field of a settlement in social work for
a community: "It seems impossible to set any bounds
to the moral capabilities which might unfold under
ideal civic and educational conditions. But, in order to
obtain these conditions, the Settlement recognizes the
need of cooperation, both with the radical and the con-
servative, and from the very nature of the case, the
Settlement cannot limit its friends to any one poUtical
party or economic school." Since these words were
written. Miss Addams has allied herself definitely with
a poUtical party, at great loss of personal prestige, but
that does not alter the truth of her written opinion.
The end of every public spirited woman is identical
with that of the Settlement, "to obtain ideal civic and
educational conditions " for her conununity; and "the
very nature of the case," as Miss Addams says, de-
mands that they be not obliged to limit their friends to
any one political party, but remain free from political
affiliations in order that their disinterestedness may not
be cavilled at.

Miss LiUian D. Wald's work as a district nurse at
the Henry Street tenement she chose to occupy on
graduating from her training course as a nurse showed
the way to the efficient Visiting Nurses' Associations
that are being organized today all over the country,
and also to the public recognition of the value of in-

94 ANTIHSUFFRAGE ESSAYS

struction in health which is finding expression in the
staffs of nurses maintained in many cities by the Board
of Health and School Departments whose services are
free to the people. This humanitarian work manifestly
had no connection with the ballot.

Miss Kate Barnard, the "Girl Commissioner of
Charities" in Oklahoma, is a striking figure of our
day. The neighboring state of Kansas is a woman
suffrage state, yet Miss Barnard seems to prefer resi-
dence in the male suffrage state of Oklahoma and has
done great things there. When Oklahoma was admitted
to statehood, it was Miss Barnard who wrote the child
labor, prison reform, and other humanitarian measures
into the State constitution; and she was made State
Commissioner of Charities, which position she holds
today. Miss Barnard, too, recognizes the power for
evil of partisan politics. She is at present waging a
bitter fight for the property rights of the Indian wards
of her state, and writing in the Survey , says: "I want
the people of the U. S. to stand by me until the hand
of partisan politics is wrested from the control of Indian
affairs in Oklahoma and in the nation. "

In 1912, when the Children's Bureau was established
at Washington, we might have expected that one of
the women constituents of the petticoated West would
be placed at its head. Instead, President Taft appoint-
ed Miss Julia C. Lathrop, a resident of Hull House in
Chicago, and a former member of the Illinois State
Board of Charities, where she was credited with the
enlargement of the Illinois State charitable institutions

ANTI-SUFFRAGE ESSAYS 95

and their thorough reorganization, though, of course,
obliged to work without the ballot. Time has proved
the wisdom of Mr. Taft's appointment and also borne
witness to the peculiar advantage enjoyed by women
in poUtics, provided they are not shackled with the
ballot.

One of the thought-inspiring books of 1914 was
also a splendid argument for the anti-suffragists. It
was Beauty for Ashes, Mrs. Albion Fellowes Bacon's
account of the securing of the Indiana Model Housing
Act, which was accomplished through the initiative
and leadership of this one woman, mother, and home-
maker, with no political prestige, with no previous
reputation built by long pubUcity, without the all-
powerful ballot.

Mrs. Bacon was supported by the Federated Wo-
man's Clubs of her State, and enlisted the aid of earnest
men and women citizens throughout the State. Her
bill was bitterly contested by the worst class of land-
lords, but after three sessions of the Legislature, at
which Mrs. Bacon was obliged to appear in person and
explain her bill, it was passed. She says of that day:
"The women, the homes of Indiana, were honored that
day by the men of the Legislature, and we had won a
law for the 101 cities of our State. No wonder the
women applauded as some of the men who gave their
reasons, added 'and because the women wanted it'."
Her conclusion is: "Most strongly have I desired to
show how much can be done by women's organiza-
tions by simply demanding right legislation, and to

ANTl-BUPFRAGE ESSAYS

show their equally important part of helping to en-
force legislation after they get it."

Speaking of her own work, ahe says: "Having no
hand in the management of political afFairs, I may
leave to the various political parties the care of reaping
the thorns in each other's fields. It has been my pleaa-

and task to gather only the grapes I have

encountered more figs than thistles, and fewer thistles
than what seems to be a sort of ca«ti, that, I firmly
believe, might be Burbankized for human good. Would
that they might be, and that we might include in the
conservation of vital resources those great powers for
good that are now so wasted by constant warring for
political supremacy."

That last sentence forms a scathing indictment of
the shortsightedoees of suffrage policy. It is pitiful
to think of the enei^ and abihty which today is di-
verted from channels of human helpfulness to this
sensational struggle for a mistaken cause. It is not to
be thought of that we can permit woman's energy to be
permanently dissipated in political warfare or handi-
capped by party vicissitudes.

These examples of achievements by women of our
own day, in our own country, should convince the
clear thinker that woman's contribution to community
organization and progress is best accomplished as a
non-partisan. The stories of Miss Schuyler and Mrs.
Bacon prove that whenever a woman has a righteous
cause or a sane ideal, she will be successful in its realiza-
tion without the ballot. The three women cited above

ANTI-SUFFRAGE ESSAYS 97

whose work most depended on legislation for its accom-
plishment, Miss Addams, Miss Barnard and Mrs.
Bacon, have all in their penned words lauded the power
of non-partisanship.

And, borrowing from Miss Barnard, the anti-
suffragist may say to the woman who seeks to enfran-
chise her sister, thus destroying the power of that great,
womanly contribution towards the solving of the vexed
questions of the day made by the disinterested, be-
cause disfranchised citizenness: ''Stand by me till the
hand of partisan poUtics is wrested from the control
of society's charities, till prisons, almshouses, child-
ren's homes, public hospitals, are administered for the
public good rather than private profit; till decent
housing, progressive education, adequate recreation,
pure food, Uving wages have been made a matter of
public, rather than political, concern." Let us not dissi-
pate our energies in internecine warfare, nor yet seek
to perpetuate the drawbacks of our partisan system of
government by enfranchising the women who now
stand outside politics.

XII

WOMAN SUFFRAGE A MENACE TO SOCIAL

REFORM

MARGARET C. ROBINSON

Margaret Caisson Robinson, wife of Professor Ben-
jamin L. Robinson of Harvard University; President
of the Public Interests League of Massachusetts;
President of the Jaffrey Village Improvement So-
ciety; Vice-President of the Cambridge Hospital
League; Vice-President of the Friends of Poland; mem-
ber of the Executive Board of the Cambridge Anti-Tuber-
culosis Associaiion; Editor of the ^* Anti-Suffrage Notes,^*
and a frequent contributor to the press, J, A, H.

The truth of our anti-sufifrage doctrine that woman
suffrage will destroy the present non-partisan power
of women and give us nothing worth having in its place
is constantly confirmed by the current happenings in
suffrage states. We have now, in the eastern and
middle states, a body of non-political women workers
of incomparable value, and one is amazed at the wrong-
headedness which would deprive society of their in-
fluence. Under present conditions the intelligent wo-
man interested in public affairs brings the full force of
her influence to bear upon legislation; her influence is

ANTI-SUFFRAGE ESSAYS 99

a moral influence — ^it is direct and can be used with
men of all political parties. The possession of this
unprejudiced, unrestricted power is something which
anti-suffragists value so highly that the threat of the
suffragists to destroy it is a very serious grievance.

It is surprising that social workers and club women
in larger nimibers are not awake to this danger; but,
as has well been said, deciding wisely on this question
is not a matter of inteUigence but of information; and
it is easier to accept suffrage theories and the misinfor-
mation which suffrage orators generously supply as to
how suffrage vnll work than to study the happenings
in suffrage states and learn for oneself how it does
work.

Social workers and club women know their present
strength and how many good laws they have helped to
put on the statute books. What they seemingly do
not realize is how quickly this power will be gone when
they divide into poUtical parties. Many of them are
apparently too ignorant of politics to understand that
as voters it is only those men for whom they will vote
that they can influence.

A despatch from Topeka, Kansas, describing the
recent campaign in that state says that three years
ago the Kansas Federation of Women's Clubs lined
up solidly for suffrage, and won it — ^and that they have
not been lined up soUdly for anything since! Instead
of throwing their influence as a unit for good legisla-
tion, as women's clubs are wont to do in male suffrage
states, these women are divided into Republicans,

100 ANTI-SUFFRAGE ESSAYS

Democrats, Progressives, and Socialists, and the friction
among them is greater than ever before.

At the time Jane Addams joined the Progressive
party it was very striking that such ardent suffragists
as Ida Husted Harper and Edward Devine, editor of
"The Survey," should have protested publicly in the
strongest terms against her action. They realized per-
fectly that poUtical partisanship narrows a woman's
sphere of influence, and that Miss Addams as a member
of the Progressive party could exercise much less in-
fluence upon Democrats and Republicans. She had
before been able to reach men of all parties, but now
her field had suddenly become inmiensely restricted in
its scope. And while Mrs. Harper and Mr. Devine
were perfectly willing, even eager, that other women
should enter politics and ally themselves with political
parties, Miss Addams was too valuable to the causes
they had at heart, namely, suffrage and social service,
for them to view with equanimity such a narrowing of
her field of influence.

In an article on the "Legislative Influence of Unen-
franchised Women," by Mary R. Beard, which ap-
peared in the "Annals of the American Academy of
PoUtical and Social Science," for November, 1914,
Mrs. Beard, although an ardent suffragist, admits that
women without the vote have been a strong influence
toward good legislation. She says:

"National as well as state legislation has been af-
fected by women, if the testimony of men like Harvey
W. Wiley is accepted. In his campaign for pure food

ANTIHSUFFRAGE ESSAYS 101

lawS; he stated repeatedly that his strongest support
came from women's organizations. That support was
not passive and moral, merely expressed to him private-
ly, but these women inundated congress with letters,
telegrams, petitions, pleading for the passage of the
laws in question. These communications were pre-
sented to congress by their recipients who often urged
as their reason for supporting pure food laws the ap-
peals of women whose interests in food should not be
ignored.

"The Consumers' League of New York helped the
national food committee to defeat a mischievous amend-
ment to the Gould bill, which requires that all package
goods should be labelled as to the amount of their
contents,

"Mrs. Albion Fellowes Bacon, of Indiana, practically
single-handed, secured the first tenement house laws
of value for Evansville and Indianapolis. She did this
before the National Housing Association, of which
she is now a director, was formed. The recent improve-
ments in the Indiana housing legislation are due ap-
parently to her continued leadership and to the public
opinion which she has helped to create. In her case it
was personal initiative and moral persuasion.

"Another example of personal influence on legisla-
tion exerted by women is that of Frances Perkins, of
New York, in her fight for the fifty-hour bill for the
women workers of her state. Unlike Mrs. Bacon, Miss
Perkins represented a society — the Consumers' League
— ^which asked for this measure, and she was supported

102 ANTI-SUFFRAGE ESSAYS

in her demand by the Women's Trade Union League
and other organizations. The measure would have
been defeated, as is widely known and acknowledged
in New York, had it not been for the personal sagacity
and watchfulness of Miss Perkins.

"The social service committee of the 'American
Club Woman' states that in the first year of its exist-
ence it has done important and effective work. It was
largely responsible for the passage of an ordinance by
city councils regulating dance halls.

"Similar activities, both positive and negative,
can be discovered in the records of practically every
woman's association not organized for purely literary
purposes."

We all know that this is true. Mrs. Beard also
says:

"The woman's influence lies not in physical force,
but in the occasional subservience of the mind of man
to the actual presence of a moral force."

The influence of this moral force is so strong and
has come to be so well recognized that certain types of
politicians and commercial interests rebel against it.
They wish to destroy it, and as the best means to that
end they advocate — woman suffrage! That is not at
all in line with what one is told at suffrage meetings.
We are told that women need the ballot in order that
they may improve the conditions in the home, that
they may help the working girl, and put through good
legislation. But the rank and file of suffragists are
being deceived in these matters, for suffrage works,

ANTI-SUFFRAGE ESSAYS 103

and will work directly the other way. The New York
World has committed a great indiscretion and has let
this cat out of the bag. The World recently came out
for suffrage and gave its reasons. One of them is that
a few women, representing perhaps ten per cent of the
sex, have under present conditions too much influence.
These women, the World says, ''have maintained at
times a reign of terror over legislative bodies, in conse-
quence of which half the country is now bedeviled by
some form or other of harem government, and legis-
lators are forever making ridiculous concessions to
women agitators." These "women agitators" are, of
course, the club women, social workers, and others
interested in social welfare. In order to make it un-
necessary for legislators to make "ridiculous conces-
sions" to this type of woman, the World advocates —
what? Giving the vote to all women! It has certainly
hit upon the most effective expedient, and it is because
the vote will do exactly what the World claims for it,
that anti-suffragists are so opposed to it. The World
says that most of the reasons urged in favor of suf-
frage are fantastic and unreal, that wotnen are not
purer and more noble than men, and that they are not
so wise as men in general affairs. It admits that they
will not purify politics — ^indeed, that they will confuse
and disorganize government, without reforming it;
but nevertheless it believes in woman suffrage because
it will destroy the power of the ten per cent of women
whose influence is now so strong!

The question for intelligent women to decide is

104 AHTI-SUFFRAGE ESSAYS

whether or not they want this influence destroyed. If
they wish to give up the moral influence which a body
of women, educated, pubKc-spirited, non-partisan,
can wield — an influence so strong that legislators feel
obHged to make what the World calls "ridiculous con-
cessions" to it — if in its stead they wish to depend on
political influence gained through the ballot, which
can be appKed only to one party, which can be entirely
offset by the votes of women who are ignorant, boss-
controlled, and whose votes are purchasable — ^if they
prefer that, they will get their wish if woman suffrage
wins. That is exactly how it is working out in the
suffrage states. In Wyoming the poUticians were
clever enough to foresee this. Woman suffrage was
granted by one of the most corrupt legislatures Wyom-
ing ever had. These men knew that at that time good
women were few in that sparsely settled State, and they
knew they could "manage the others.'*

Nevada is offering us a most perfect example of the
good woman's loss of influence by entering pohtics.
The easy divorce laws of that state, in force until three
years ago, were a national scandal. This was realized
by certain women of the state, who in consequence
brought their moral influence to bear upon the legis-
lature for the repeal of these laws. Their efforts were
successful and the laws were repealed. Woman suf-
frage was granted in Nevada last fall, and one of the
very first acts of the legislature was to re-enact the
easy divorce laws! These women again protested, but
with no success. They were now voters, and the legis-

ANTI-SUFFRAGE ESSAYS 105

lature knew perfectly well that plenty of women's
votes could be secured to offset those of the protesting
women. The moral influence of this minority of Nevada
women who cared for social betterment was gone since
the vote had been given to all women.

In her admirable anti-sufifrage address before the
Maine legislature at the recent hearing on suffrage,
Mrs. J. F. A. Merrill said:

"What do men do when they want to bring about
a reform?

"They do as the men of Portland did a short time
ago, when a number of citizens became convinced that
the moral conditions in Portland were not what they
should be. And what did they do? Did they vote
about it? Did they form party organizations? No;
they resorted as nearly as they could, to what is known
as 'women's methods,' and formed a non-partisan cit-
izen's committee, just as detached as possible from
poUtics. And why did they resort to women's meth-
ods? Simply because they had all had the vote since
coming of age, and they all knew how useless it is as a
means of accomplishing reform work.

"Gentlemen, in every conmiunity there are a hand-
ful of women who can be relied upon to carry on church
and philanthropic and reform work; but we all know
that the vast majority are indifferent, and that they
neither help nor hinder. And then there is a third class,
of women — ^the wrongminded. They do not hinder
reform work now, because they cannot.

"But, gentlemen, when you give the ballot to all

106 ANTI-SUFFRAGE ESSAYS

women your handful of earnest women in each com-
mmiity, who are willing to give their time and thought
to reform work, will have only their handful of ballots
to cast for reform measures; your great mass of indif-
ferent women will be indiflferent still, and will omit
to cast their ballots, and your very considerable num-
ber of wrongminded women will have had a weapon
put into their hands which they will not omit to use
against your reform measures, because it is of import-
ance to them to see to it that their way of life is not in-
terfered with.

"So for the sake of reform which women have done
in the past, and ought to be able to do in the future,
we beg of you not to tie their hands and hamper them
by giving suffrage to women!"

That is the matter in a nutshell — and proofs of
the correctness of this statement are constantly multi-
plying. In an attempt to prove that woman suffrage
will not lead women to neglect their homes, a writer
signing herself "Annie Laurie" says in the San Fran-
cisco Examiner:

"IVe been in Denver when a good man was being
maligned and almost robbed by political enemies, and
he needed the vote of every good woman in town to
keep the good work he had done from being stultified.
And do you think you could get a single woman out to
vote for that man if she wanted to go to a *tea' or to
stay at home and knit socks for the new baby? You
could not."

This is just what anti-suffragists maintain — that

ANTI-SUFFRAGE ESSAYS 107

the great body of home-making women will not vote.

The Woman Citizen, a suffrage publication of Cali-
fornia, in its July issue, bears testimony on this ques-
tion as follows:

"There are today many women in California and
other States of the union who, being enfranchised, are
too indifferent to vote. We are loath to believe that
these women — thousands of them in the United States
— are aware of the wrong they are doing. We do not
think they know they are shirking a fimdamental duty
of citizenship. Too many ballots are cast in the cause
of dishonesty and corruption. Honest and law-abiding
citizens must exert their united strength at the polls
to uphold honesty and good government. There are
too many women today who are priviUged to vote,
yet refrain from doing so either because they do not
believe a woman should go to the polls, or because for
some inexcusable reason they have neglected to regis-
ter. They regard their franchise as an invitation to a
bridge party, something they can accept or reject as
their fancy dictates. "

There is no lack of testimony that the wrong-
minded women do vote. On November 4, the day af-
ter election, the San Francisco Examiner said: "Mc-
Donough Brothers had several automobiles busy all
day long hauling Barbary coast dance hall girls and the
inmates of houses on Conamercial street to the differ-
ent booths, and always the women were supplied with
marked sample ballots."

They were outvoting the women reformers!

108 ANTIHSUFFRAGB ESSAYS

What is the result? What is happening to moral
conditions in San Francisco since women vote? The
American Social Hygiene Association pointed out last
spring that there had been an increase in the number of
questionable dance halls, and the "Survey" of April
10 stated that danger signals were being flashed all
over the country to young people bound for the expo-
sition, as there was much \memplo3anent, and the city's
moral condition gave cause for anxiety.

A later report, by Bascom Johnson, counsel
of the Social Hygiene Association, who was sent to
San Francisco for further investigation, appears in
full in the September issue of "Social Hygiene." It
is far more serious than previous reports. Within the
exposition are several concessions, maintained despite
protests specifically against them, which are deplor-
ably vicious. In the city itself conditions are appalling,
the poUcemen being there apparently to prevent any-
thing from interfering with the orderly and profitable
traffic in vice.

Sunmiing up his report, Mr. Johnston says, "in
spite of announcements of officials to the contrary , San
Francisco remains one of the few large cities of this
country where prostitution is frankly and openly tol-
erated. The natural and inevitable result has been
that San Francisco has become the Mecca of the un-
derworld, and that for every such addition to her pop-
ulation the problem is rendered that much more diffi-
cult."

These are the conditions in a city where women

ANTI-SUFFRAGE ESSAYS 109

vote! Mr. Johnson says that the Y. W. C. A., the W.
C. T. U. and other organizations of the kind have
tried to improve these conditions, but have failed, as
they received "Zittte or no support from the city offi-
cials." This fact is directly in opposition to the suf-
frage theory that women must have the vote in order
that city and state officials shall pay heed to their
wishes. If California were still imder male suffrage —
if the thousands of dissolute women in San Francisco
who wiU vote as the party in power dictates did not
have the vote — ^the moral influence of the ladies of the
Y. W. C. A. and the W. C. T. U. would be much more
likely to be a factor in the situation. If these ladies
vote at all, their vote is divided between the Democrats,
Republicans, Progressives, and Socialists, and is there-
fore of much less importance than the big vote which
can be controlled. Dr. Helen Sumner, sent by the
suffragists to study conditions in Denver several years
ago, states that "the vote of these women to whom the
poUce protection is essential is regarded as one of the
perquisites of the party in power."

With these facts in mind it is very clear that the
statement constantly made by suffragists that after
women are enfranchised they need not vote if they do
not want to, is shallow and unprincipled, and the
woman who makes it proves herself an unsafe person
to be enfranchised. The stay-at-home vote is a great
and serious menace.

Voting differs from the higher education and other
so-called "woman's rights." They are privileges only.

110 ANTI-SUFFRAGE ESSAYS

Whether a gu-1 goes to college or does not go to college
is a personal matter, and her decision works no danger
to other girls or to the community. The college is
there, and she can go or not, as her taste and circum-
stances decide. But voting is a totally diflferent mat-
ter. Enfranchisement confers a privilege and an obli-
gation, the obligation being inseparable from the privi-
lege. Since the shirking of this obligation means a
serious menace to the community, the unwiUingness
of a large majority of women to accept the obligation
is a factor of the utmost importance in the situation.

The San Francisco Chronicle says: * 'Results show
that in this state women refuse to accept the obliga-
tion which at their request, or upon their apparent
acquiescence, has been imposed upon them, or to dis-
charge the resulting duties. The question, then, for
the people of other states to decide is the Ught of ex-
perience of the western States is whether it is in the
public interest to impose on women imperative duties
which the great majority of them refuse to discharge
after they have been imposed upon them. ''

Another danger connected with woman suffrage
is this — ^the character of the women chosen for the
positions of responsibiUty will change.

The Woman's Journal of March 20, 1915, speaking
of Mayor Harrison, of Chicago, says: "If he had occa-
sion to appoint a welfare worker for women and chil-
dren, he did not appoint a woman who had experience
for the work and could do it well, but picked out a
woman who would be a cog in his political machine."

ANTI-SUFFRAGE ESSAYS 111

Naturally! It is when women are outside politics that
they are appointed on their merits. When they have
the vote those are naturally chosen who are cogs in
the pohtical machine.

The sufifragists never tire of quoting Julia Lathrop.
As she holds an important position as head of the Fed-
eral Children's Bureau, they consider her views on
suffrage, since her views coincide with theirs, as most
valuable and important. What is important is the
fact that if Miss Lathrop were allied with a pohtical
party she would not be holding the position which is
supposed to give her views such weight. It was only
because she was a woman and a non-partisan that she
retained her position at the change of administration,
when the RepubKcans went out and the Democrats
came in. Every man at the head of a similar bureau
lost his job!

Miss Jane Addams, in a suffrage speech in Boston,
claimed that by means of the ballot women in Chicago
have accomplished several important reforms. These
were:

1. Covered markets had been secured where food
might be kept clean.

2. A court for boys of 17 and under 25 had been
established.

3. Public wash-houses have been established.

4. The garbage dumps have been abolished.

The record of accomplishments of Chicago women
voters as presented by Miss Addams is not impressive,

112 ANTI-SUFFRAGE ESSAYS

for the reforms she cites have been accomplished in
other cities without votes for women.

What the women accomplished in Chicago before
they got the vote makes a much more impressive show-
ing. It is to them, says the Chicago Tribune, that
Chicago owes the kindergarten in the public school,
the juvenile court and detention home, the small park
and playground movement, the vacation school, the
school extension, the establishment of a forestry de-
partment of the city government, the city welfare ex-
hibit, the development of the Saturday half-hoUday,
the establishment of public comfort stations, the work
of the Legal Aid Society, and the reformation of the
Illinois Industrial School. This is a long and brilliant
list of women's achievements, not to be matched by the
voting women of any state. Chicago women were
working together when these things were accomplished
— now they are fighting each other in rival political
parties.

Henry M. Hyde, a reporter for the Chicago Tribune,
which has long supported the woman suffrage move-
ment, wrote over his own signature his impressions of
last springes election in Chicago, and the part women
played in it. He says:

"The first mayoralty campaign in which women
voters participated failed to develop the refining and
elevating influence which the sex was expected to
exert. When one sees a woman of dignified presence
and cultivated appearance greeted with torrents of
hisses and insults from the frenzied hps of both men

ANTI-SUFFRAGE ESSAYS 113

and women; when one sees her finally driven from the
platform with no chance of speaking a word, one is
tempted to retire to some quiet spot for a moment and
meditate on what it all means.

"When one watches a venerable lady trying to
quell the tumult by waving a flag and almost dancing
to the same rhythm, while 1,200 shrieking men and wo-
men order her to 'sit down and chase herself,' one
remembers his own grandmother, and makes a feeble
efifort to blush. One is almost tempted to pick that
discarded and discredited old rehc once known as mas-
culine chivalry out of the scrap heap, and see how many
people would recognize it."

These references are to a woman's poUtical mass
meeting, which was described in a Chicago despatch
to the Boston Herald as follows:

"A demonstration approaching a riot marked the
women's pohtical meeting here today, and was ended
only when the managers of the theatre where the meet-
ing was held dropped the steel curtain and a spectator
sent in a riot call for the police."

Does this sort of thing tend to increase woman's
influence in uplifting and benefiting her conmiimity?

A suffrage writer said recently that the son who
grows up to find his mother a voter will have a broad-
ened respect for womanhood. With these scenes in
Chicago in mind, do you think he will? Suppose she
has just voted for Bath-House John, the notorious can-
didate who got a majority of the women's votes in his
ward, or in favor of saloons, as thousands of women

114 ANTI-SUFFRAGE ESSAYS

have done — will he have added respect for her? This
same writer says: "It might be a new and stimulating
experience for a man to have to explain to his wife
just why he was voting on the side of a corrupt boss, in
favor of the Uquor traffic, or against the suppression of
child labor/' But if she had just done those things
herself — and in Chicago the women voted just as the
men did — ^why should the experience be a stimulating
one?

Jane Addams, while on her foreign mission of
"Peace — with suffrage" saidin London, on May 12,1915 :

"I am a strong supporter of woman suffrage, and,
although I hope to see the women of England enfran-
chised, I see around me endless opportunities for social
work which could be usefully performed while the vote
is being won.''

The interesting point about this is that English
women have for many years had the vote on all mat-
ters pertaining to housing, care of the poor, sanitation,
education, Hquor regulations, police, care of the in-
sane, care of children, etc. Probably Miss Addams
does not know this. They have failed completely to
do with the vote what even Miss Addams, confirmed
and prejudiced suffragist that she is, admits that they
could do perfectly well without the vote. This is
certainly a striking admission on her part.

Why have they failed so lamentably? Mrs. Pethick
Lawrence tells us. She says:

"I never saw so many women working for social
betterment as I have seen in the American cities I have

ANTI-SUFFRAGE ESSAYS 115

visited. In England women have turned their attention
to politics and have accomplished nothing like so much
in civic reform^

Anti-sufifragists ask women not to turn their at-
tention to politics and neglect civic reform; not to
make this appalling mistake, which will set back the
social progress of om* cities for many years; not to
make powerless, through woman suffrage, as the New
York World wants to do, the women who are now work-
ing for social betterment.

The suffragists apparently do not care what evils
follow, provided they get their way.

The Rev. Anna Shaw, president of the National
Suffrage Association, says:

"I believe in woman suffrage whether all women
vote or no women vote; whether all women vote right
or all women vote wrong; whether all women will
love their husbands after they vote or forsake them;
whether they will neglect their children or never have
any children."

In introducing this astoimding statement. Dr.
Shaw declared: "I beheve I speak for the thousands
of women belonging to the national association."

Perhaps she does. At least no one of them has been
heard to deny it; but fortunately she does not speak
for the 24,000,000 women of voting age in the United
States who are not members of the National Suffrage
association. Many of these do care for public welfare,
for social well-being, and for human happiness, all of
which would be destroyed if all women voted wrong,

116 ANTI-SUFFRAGE ESSAYS

if they deserted their husbands, and neglected their
children. Anti-suffra^ts protest against having
political power put into the hands of women with no
higher ideals than those of Dr. Shaw and her followers.
They neither wish to be ruled by such women nor do
they wish to have to wage an eternal fight not to be
ruled by them, and one thing or the other will be neces-
sary if the ballot is forced upon women. In Califomia
the men are begging the home-making type of women
to come out and fight the poUtical women, whom they
already recognize as a danger and a nuisance.

Men who believe in fair play will refuse to force
political life upon all the women of their states because
a small fraction think they want it. Those who care
for the poUtical welfare of their states will decline to
adopt this innovation, which assuredly cannot stand
the tests of rational criticism and of experience. If
they value in the slightest degree the assistance which
educated, public-spirited women are able to give in
securing enlightened legislation, they will certainly
not favor votes for women; for what woman suffrage
does is to take the power out of the hands of these wo-
men, who without the vote exert a strong moral in-
fluence toward good legislation, and put the power
gained through an increase in the electorate into the
hands of the bosses who can control the largest wom-
an's vote.

"Practical politicians" are learning this lesson rap-
idly. The New York Conmiercial calls attention to
the fact that in our cities the female vote is more easily

ANTIHBUFFRAOE ESSAYS 117

manipulated than the male. This fact does not escape
the bosses, and they are rapidly coming into line for
woman suffrage. While woman suffrage was largely
an untried theory suffragists could maintain with
some plausibility that woman's vote would be cast for
moral and hmnane legislation, and would piuify poli-
tics; but with the actual conditions in Chicago, San
Francisco, Reno, Denver, and Seattle what they are,
this theory no longer holds water, and it is becoming
increasingly evident that the way to do away with the
moral influence of women in public life is to give the
vote to all women.

XIII

THE ANTI-SUFFRAGE IDEAL

MRS. HERBERT LYMAN

Rvth Whitney Lyman j wife of Herbert Lyman; studied
two years at Bryn Mawr; a member of the Woman^s Mvr-
nicipal League of Boston and of the Board of Directors
of the North End Diet Kitchen, J. A. H.

Women today find their sex disquieted by deep
unrest. Our sex is seeking to adjust itself to new con-
ditions. Suffrage, feminism, militancy, have been the
symptoms of the first phase of modem woman's at-
tempt to adjust herself to twentieth century conditions.
That phase was the outgrowth of hasty judgment, and
is rapidly giving place to the second phase, wherein
the sober second thought of the normal woman is re-
pudiating the false values preached by those women
who impulsively leaped to the conclusion that man's
sphere was more potent than woman's and therefore
more desirable.

The struggle over woman suffrage presents the spec-
tacle of two camps of women arrayed against each
other with opposing ideals. Let no one be so simple as
to suppose that the issue is one between men and women
It is not a "woman's rights" question.; it is a which

118

ANTI-SUFFRAGE ESSAYS 119

woman's rights question. Two types of women are at
war, for although both desire the same end — ^namely,
a better world to live in — they dififer fundamentally
as to the method of attaining it.

The fundamental difference is this — that the suf-
fragist (like the socialist) persists in regarding the indi-
vidual as the unit of society, while the anti-suffragist
insists that it is the family. Individualism is the all-
important thing to the suffragist; to the anti-suffra-
gist it is soimdness of family relationships. Suffra-
gism is foimded upon a sex-conscious individualism
and sex antagonism, which leads it to say that woman
can only be represented by herself, and that women now
are a great imrepresented class. As a matter of fact,
women are not a class, but a sex, pretty evenly dis-
tributed throughout all the various classes of society.

Anti-suffrage is founded upon the conception of
co-operation between the sexes. Men and women
must be regarded as partners, not competitors; and the
family, to be preserved as a unit, must be represented
by having one political head. The man of the family
must be that representative, because government is
primarily the guarantee of protection to life and prop-
erty and rests upon the political strength of the major-
ity, which should be able in times of need to force
minorities to obey their will. That is the only basis
on which a democracy can endure. Suffragism says
that in order to attack existing evils women must or-^
ganize for participation in law making. It stakes ita
faith on more government (a second resemblance to

120 ANTI-SUFFRAGE ESSAYS

socialism), upon control by law. The anti-suffragist
sees the evils of society as fundamentally resulting from
the evil in individuals, and calls on women to check it
at its source. They emphasize the power of individual
homes to turn out men and women, who, trained to
self-control, will not necessitate control by law. Know-
ing well that the great training school for private moral-
ity is family life, the anti-suffragist seeks to preserve
conditions making for sound family life, the simi total
of private morality being pubUc morality, the conscience
of the people.

Moreover, the twentieth century has given us its
watchword, which is, differentiation or division of labor.
Anti-suffragists by accepting it, and applying to their
sex the new demands of specialization, put themselves
abreast of the times; but suffragists lag behind, still
harping on the exploded theories of equaUty and ident-
ity. The strikingly progressive message the new cen-
tury presents us is this: Give equal opportunity to
men and women for expression along their different
lines. Government, law making, law enforcement,
with all the aUied problems of tariff, taxation, poUce,
railroads, interstate and international relationships,
etc., must still be the business of men. The business of
women must be to work out a national ideal of domestic
life and juvenile training. They must standardize the
family life with their new understanding of the im-
portance of the product of every separate family to the
state.

The suffragist, who is so often the unmarried or

ANTI-SUFFRAGE ESSAYS 121

childless woman, here objects that women could also
vote. But it is practically impossible for women as a
sex to undertake the regular and frequent political
duties. If the highest efficiency in private life is to be
striven toward, women must regard themselves as a
sort of emergency corps, prepared to meet the unex-
pected; for illness, accidents, temptation, sorrow — ^all
the disturbances of domestic life — do not come at stated
intervals. Anyone can readily see that for women
private duty would constantly conflict with public
duty. To become an efficient poUtical unit, a woman
would have to set aside much time and strength upon
organizing and bringing out the woman's vote. There
would be the splitting up of women into rival poUtical
groups on class, race, or religious lines, the dissipation
of enei^es and strain of contention for women who in
America already reach with sad frequency the break-
ing point of nerves and body.

In contrast to such obligatory activity for all wo-
men, consider the field of voluntary non-partisan ac-
tivity now open to the single woman, the woman of
leisure, and to every woman at such times as her fam-
ily duties permit. Indeed the germ of the true woman's
movement lies in the activities of such organizations
as education societies, playground associations, munici-
pal leagues, and so forth, which are only in their first
stages of usefulness. Here is ample scope and outlet
for talents and energy.

Our sex, if kept out of politics, has the opportimity
in these days when we prate so much about peace, to

122 ANTI-SUFFRAGE ESSAYS

set about disarming distrust and discord within our
own borders. Shall we not dream of a united American
womanhood? We twentieth century women may take a
noble stride toward it, if we will, by working for those
causes that disregard the divisions of race, reUgion, and
pontics. Is it surprising that the anti-suffragist sees a
vast, unexhausted field for woman's influence outside the
poUtical? No wonder that to the suffragist's craving
for a new sphere and new rights she opposes the plea
of old duties unfulfilled and existing opportunities ne-
glected.

To contrast the opposing ideals of the two
groups of women, let me quote from what a great
Frenchman said in the time of the French Revolu-
tion: "You have written upon the moniunents of your
city the words Liberty — Fraternity — EquaUty. Above
Liberty write Duty; above Fraternity write Humihty;
above Equality write Service; above the immemorial
creed of your Rights inscribe the divine creed of your
Duties.'' I truly believe that the women who, perceiv-
ing present duties imperfectly performed, refuse to
take up the cry for more rights, are following the more
Christ-like ideal. I do not think that twentieth century
American women have outgrown His peerless example,
which urges them to be faithful first over a few things
as He commanded. God made us women; and if we
are told that women suffer more than men in peace and
war, let us answer, "Very likely — Christ Himself found
His cross heavy — let us bear the cross and crown of
womanhood in His name."

XIV

THE TRUE FUNCTION OF THE NORMAL

WOMAN

MRS. HORACE A. DAVIS

Anna Hallowell Davis, wife of Horace Davis; was
educated in Boston private schools and is a graduMe of
Radcliffe College; was a member of Local School Board
No. 4^, New York City, for eight years; is a member of
Brookline Civic Society , the North Bennett Street Indus-
trial School Association, and of the Massachusetts Peace
Association, J. A. H.

The whole question of suffrage and anti-suffrage is
significant chiefly as it affects the married woman with
children and a home; for if there is any elemental
fact on which to plant our feet, it is that the normal
woman is a wife and mother and home-maker. But is
not the contention of the suffragists fimdamentally
based upon the circumstances of the woman who is
not leading this normal life —who is unmarried, who has
no children, or who is not makmg a home and bringing
up her children herself? It is in planning for these
exceptional women, as I think they do, that the suf-
fragist leaders tend to ignore the truly representative
women — ^the majority. Do we not suspect, indeed,

123

124 ANTI-SUFFRAGE ESSAYS

that they are turning to new ideals, because they have
never tried the old? As Chesterton says: "The ideal
house, the happy family, is now chiefly assailed by
those who have never known it, or by those who have
failed to fulfil it. Numberless modem women have
rebelled against domesticity in theory, because they
have never known it in practice."

"But," the suffragists ask, ''granting that your
woman of 'normal' life is in the majority, and doesn't
want the vote, oughtnH she to want it? Casting a ballot
takes next to no time, and that is all she needs to do.
Most men do no more than that."

But men ought to do more. That is just the point.
That is just why corrupt government has been fas-
tened on our cities. The Tanmiany leaders do more.
They give all their time to politics; but the "reform"
vote cannot, except occasionally, be got to the polls
in suflScient numbers; and too few of the best men will
run for oflSce. If women are simply going to aggravate
these conditions, if the "normal," representative woman
isn't going to vote and hold oflSce, and the non-repre-
sentative, exceptional woman is, where is the advantage
to the state of adding women to the electorate? Prob-
ably, however, rather th^n have this happen, the rep-
resentative woman would feel that she must enter the
Usts. In competition with "abnormal" or unscrupu-
lous women, she would be forced to vote and to hold
oflice. More than just going to the poUs, she would
have to think, read, and talk politics, as men do, or
ought to do. The whole question here is: Is it better

ANTI-SUFFRAGE ESSAYS 126

for her to do this, or to do the things which men don't
do? For one person can't do it all well. A good mother
of three or four children aheady has more than she can
do well. If she takes up this whole new department of
life and thought, I am convinced she will have to let
something else go, and already under the influence of
the feminist movement, that "something else'' seems to
be her home. So, this is what the anti-suffragists feel
most keenly — ^that once the franchise is imposed as a
duty, they would have to do the things which men
already are doing (and doing as well as the women
could do them) ; that they would no longer be free to
do what they think is the higher work for them, as
women. Therefore, when a suffragist tells me she has
a "right" to vote, I say that, in the name of the best
interests of the community, I have the right not to
vote.

Another thing which the anti-suffragists feel is
not recognized sufliciently by their opponents, is the
essential and valuable difference between men and
women in their manner of approach to any given human
problem. "Law" to the antis seems a man's word.
Man thinks of people in masses. He makes laws for
the whole. He generalizes better than women. On
the other hand, where woman is stronger than he is
in her feeling for the individual person, and her use of
love rather than of law, neither the masculine nor
the feminine gift is better, the one than the other, but
the two work together as necessary parts of one whole.
As Ida Tarbell puts it : "Himian society may be likened

126 ANTI-SUFFRAGE ESSAYS

to two great circles, one revolving within the other
In the inner circle rules the woman. Here she breeds
and trains the material for the outer circle, which
exists only by and for her. That accident may throw
her into this outer circle is, of course, true, but it is
not her natural habitat. Nor is she fitted by Nature
to Uve and circulate freely there. What it all amounts
to is that the labor of the world is naturally divided
between the two different beings that people the world.
It is unfair to the woman that she be asked to do the
work of the outer circle. The man can do that satis-
factorily if she does her part, that is, if she prepares
him the material. Certainly, he can never come into
the inner circle and do her work.''

So, in claiming for women the right to take a part
in the man's half of life, the suffragists, I think, lose
sight of what the woman's half is. In urging that they
must have a hand in law-making and government and
public life generally, they do not see that woman's
peculiar work is pretty independent of laws and of
government, is rather in private life. For it is just
where the law cannot reach that woman is supreme.
It is just in the finer, more personal and intimate re-
lationships of life, which government cannot include,
that woman finds her work waiting for her, which she
alone can do — what Octavia Hill calls "the out-of-
sight, silent work."

That woman is today neglecting this, her own part
of the world's work, I think is everywhere apparent.
Surely we do not need more laws; what we do need is

ANTI-SUFFRAGE ESSAYS 127

more of the spirit which shall make people want to
obey the laws which we have. What else does it mean
when we say we cannot enforce the laws? The suffra-
gists are clamoring for more laws, for more of the man-
element in society; the anti-sufifragists feel that it is
the inner Kfe and character, the mother's work, which
everywhere needs strengthening. Settlement workers,
doctors, ministers, and poUce commissioners, are
beginning to feel this, too. They are telling us that
in their work they find that no laws and no institu-
tions can take the place of home teaching and in-
fluence with young people. The outer restraint and
penalty are little effective unless they are met by the
inner desire to do right.

On points like these I believe the accent should be
laid today. The pendulum is swinging too far away from
the things which our mothers and grandmothers made
their chief concern. What is called '*the rise of woman,"
her new feeling of influence and power, are blessings
only as they help her to do better and of freer choice
the things which are in tune with Nature and with
the need of the world.

THE IMPERATIVE DEMAND UPON WOMEN

IN THE HOME

MRS. CHARLES BURTON 6ULICK

Anne Hathaway Gulick, wife of Professor Charles B.
Gulick of Harvard University; graduated at the Framing-
ham State Normal School; taught four years in Boston
and Cambridge, and is Secretary of the Public Interests'
League of Massachusetts. J. A. H.

In his address to the Associated Press on April 21,
1915, President Wilson said: "You deal in the raw ma-
terial of opinion, and if my convictions have any valid-
ity, opinion ultimately governs the worid." This is
exactly what the anti-suffragists beUeve and teach.
They know that the vote merely registers pubUc opin-
ion, it does not make it. Therefore, they oppose laying
the useless burden of the ballot on the shoulders of
woman, who already has every opportunity in her
own special province to mold public opinion by edu-
cating the inmates of her home to live right and to
think right. From such homes, where high principles
are inculcated, comes the public spirited, right minded
man, whose vote registers the fact that the mother in

128

ANTI-SUFFRAGE ESSAYS 129

that home has done her duty faithfully and well. A
woman who has thus fulfilled her obligation to the
world knows that there is not time left to take up
political duties. Either the home or the politics must
suffer. In the end, in the great majority of cases, na-
ture would assert herself, and the political duties would
be neglected.

A minister, who is a suffragist, is quoted recently
as saying: "Our young men, we believe, would be
safer if their mothers and wives had the ballot, for they
are the ones most injured by many evils." In what
way will our young men be safer because their mothers
and their wives have the ballot? Instead of devoting
themselves wholly to teaching their sons and daughters
the value of self-restraint, of respect for the rights and
comfort of others, and the importance of high ideals
of citizenship, if these same mothers and wives are
dividing their attention between the home and political
strife and strain, can they reasonably be expected to
fulfill their greatest duty successfully? No woman
should be obliged to divide her energies, and so have
less time to give to the study of her children. No two
children are alike, and each child requires special con-
sideration and care for its best development. Can
any one tell at what moment a child may need unusual
attention and thought to guide it aright? Supposing
the mother had the ballot, would the poUtical campaign
wait because her child was going through a particularly
trying period, when a step one way or the other might
make or mar its character? Or would the child wait to

130 ANTI-SUFFRAGE ESSAYS

take the step because it was important for the mother
to throw all the weight of her sound sense and good
influence into the political campaign, and she must,
therefore, just at this critical time set aside her home
duties? No, most certainly not. The mother must
have no other duties which could come before her home
duties at any time.

Some one said recently: "A man must have a place
to go from and to come to." In order to make him con-
tinue to want to go from and come to his home, there
must be something there to make him look forward
to the home-coming with pleasure as the reward of
his labor. If this home is kept by a woman who cannot
be at home often when most needed, who labors imder
the excitement of the poHtical campaign, how long is
he going to look forward to his home-coming? Of
course, the answer to this is that most women would
not spend any more time over politics than they do
now. But if that is so, of what use will they be as
voters, and why add a perfectly useless body of voters,
when this addition to the electorate will mean an in-
crease in the expenses of the government and conse-
quently higher cost of living, already too high for the
average family?

We do not believe with Mr. Creel that "the old
fashioned idea of home is bunk," nor do we agree with
Mr. Roger Sherman Hoar, who is reported as say-
ing that "woman suffrage, by doubling the electorate,
will double the opportunities of each man for poUtical
interest." He goes on to say that when a man's wife

ANTI-SUFFRAGE ESSAYS 131

becomes a voter he will talk politics with her and will
give more weight to her political opinion, thereby learn-
ing the home point of view on home matters. Is it
probable that a man who has not spent enough time
with his wife to know what the home point of view is
before she has a vote, would be induced to spend more
time there because she had? It is much more likely
that he would spend less time there, since without
political duties she was unable to make his home at-
tractive, and with political duties she would have even
less time to give to the making of a good home. Fur-
ther on we read: "With increased interest in matters
political'' — this increase to be brought about by giv-
ing women the vote — "the men will scrutinize their
public servatits more carefully." What becomes here
of the contention of the suffragists that the ballot is the
only thing that wakens interest in good government,
if the men who already have the ballot are not interested
in good government, but need to have the women en-
franchised before they can have a real interest in mat-
ters political?

No, woman must specialize in the home. I am not
speaking of those who "by choice or accident have
missed the highest privilege of womanhood," as Mr.
Pyle ably puts it, but of the great majority of women.
To my mind the advantages of a properly conducted
home life far outweigh the advantages of any institu-
tion, no matter how good. That I am not alone in this
opinion is witnessed by the fact that the trustees of
the best orphan asylinns are making every effort to

132 ANTI-SUFFRAGE ESSAYS

diminish the number of children in their institutions
and to place the children in homes. They have learned
that even a poorly conducted home is better than a
well conducted asylum, and that they have no right to
deprive children of the benefits of family life. Yet the
feminists, closely allied with the sufifragists, advocate
putting children of tender age into institutions, where,
according to them, they will be better cared for than
at home. "If they are well, the institution nurse is as
good; if they are ill, she is much better than the mother"
says one suffrage leader. Those of us who have known
better can only pity people who hold such beUefs. To
them mother love can have no meaning. Yet those
of us who have felt this mother love, know what
a guiding star it has been, and must always continue
to be, brightening steadily as the years go by, and
beckoning us more persistently than ever to higher
ideals when it is only a memory. Who would dare
deprive our children of this precious heritage? Only
the unknowing.

After all, the women who rebel against the idea
that home is the place for woman are largely those
who misunderstand the duties of home, who think only
of the drudgery, and forget to think of the happiness
that comes with watching our families develop under
our care. Although the mother must do all the work
in the average family, it is not from these homes where
in most cases the women are happily busy with their
home duties that most of the agitation about abandon-
ning the home comes, but from among those people who

ANTI-SUFFRAGE ESSAYS 133

have too much leisure on their hands, and who, un-
fortunately, do not find suflBciently exciting the duties
of training good citizens. Whatever our work in life,
whatever our occupation, we cannot rid ourselves of
drudgery. Is there not more deadening, unvarying
monotony for the business woman, the shop girl, the
factory hand, than for the woman in the home who is
her own mistress and can in some degree regulate and
vary her work to suit her own pleasure? It is only
because such work is new and untried by them that
many women think it preferable to home duties; but
the fact that so many girls in industry marry young to
get away from this uncongenial work proves that when
tried it is not found either so exciting or so interesting
as these advocates of woman in industry and out of
the home imagine.

Do not mistake me: No woman should spend all
of her time at home. Public needs and social duties
must be attended to. From the latter she brings re-
freshment and new ideas to the home, and by giving a
proper share of her energies to the former she can do
her part toward helping the community in which she
lives to be constantly improving itself, and so to be-
come an ideal place in which to develop worthy cit-
izens. With these interests she can be a real influence
for good, and without them she must fall short of ideal
motherhood. We must not forget that a woman can
select her own time for her social duties, and they can
be set aside at any time that more important matters

134 ANTIHSUFFRAGE ES&A.YS

need her attention in the home, but that she could not
select her own time for poUtical duties.

Let us remember, then, as Miss Lucy Price sa3rs,
that after all, women in big business are not the suc-
cesses, men can do that work as well and better than
they. It is the women in the home, outmunbering
all others fifteen to one (and fourteen of these do not
keep a servant), who are really the great and typical
women of the world.

XVI

SUFFRAGE AND THE SEX PROBLEM

MRS. WILLIAM LOWELL PUTNAM

Mrs, William Lowell Putnam; a director of the
American Association for the Study and Prevention of
Infant Mortality; Chairmanj Department of Public
Health of Women^s Municipal League of Boston, which
has the following committees: Household Nursing,
Prenatal and Obstetrical Care, Sanitation and Safety
of Public Buildings and Conveyances, Hygiene of Occvr-
pations. Abatement of Noise, Social Hygiene and Qvxick-
ery; a member of the National Child Welfare Ex-
hibit Committee, and of the Massachusetts Committee
on Unemployment of the American Section of the Interna^
tional Association; Chairman, Executive Committee of
Massachusetts Milk Consumers^ Association; Chair-
man of the Sub-Committee on Boston of the Special Aid
Society for American Preparedness. J. A. H.

More talk and less thought is expended on the sub-
ject of sex today than on almost anything else.

It is a hopeful sign for the future that society in
general is awakening to the far-reaching importance of
the relations between the sexes, and — feeling that these

135

136 ANTI-SUFFRAGE ESSAYS

relations at present leave much to be desired — ^is offer-
ing many suggestions for the solution of this vexed
problem, even though the suggestions themselves are
not always calculated to obtain the desired results.
The fact that throughout much of the civilized world,
women outnumber men, combined with the atti-
tude of certain women whose lives have been passed
without personal experience of sexual relations has led
to the suggestion that the sex problem may be simpli-
fied in the future by the development of a neuter sex
which these people think they see approaching. But
this seems hardly a hkely solution, for asexuality must
of necessity be self-destructive, and need not, there-
fore, occupy us long, though just now the type
does seem rather self-concious. A less fanciful,
though not more satisfying, solution is that of the
feminist, who, in hunting for a cure, demands for men
and women alike no restraint on sexual relations be-
yond the immediate desires of the two people most
intimately concerned, while her milder sister, the suf-
fragette, believes that women by voting can bring
about in both sexes the control of human passion.

That the sexual relation interests the world is not
so new a condition as we sometimes think; indeed, half
unconsciously, sex has always been of paramount in-
terest from the cradle to the grave, from the time when
the child alone first nurses tenderly its doll, or in groups
plays house, and at being father and mother and
children. It is only the realization and open dis-
cussion of the interest which is new. Sex is the most

ANTI-SUFFRAGE ESSAYS 137

vital thing in the world, for on it all but the lowest
forms of life depend; hence the instinct of reproduction
is equalled in its force by no other except, perhaps,
that of self-preservation. We must think about it.
Only let us think straight.

The reproductive instinct is normally stronger in
men than in women; because in matters of sex, what-
ever he may be in other things, man is certainly the
giver and woman the receiver of the gift. This fact
has led to the assumption that man is, therefore, re-
sponsible for all the sins of sex, and this would un-
doubtedly be true were instinct and passion matters
quite beyond our personal control, but they are not.
The instinct of. self-preservation is the most funda-
mental feeling that we have, and yet in the sinking of
the "Titanic" and the horror of the "Lusitania," we
saw this instinct controlled — how gloriously — ^by ihe
highest manhood of men, not only of those from whom
we should have expected the utmost consideration,
but also of those who, we might have thought, had
forfeited their manhood by lives of uncontrolled and
sodden self-indulgence, lives full of injury to women,
and to children born through them. Their manhood
was not lacking when the call to protect the women
and the children came in terms which they could
imderstand. Why were they not taught to control
the other fimdamental instinct of life at a time when
such a thing was possible? Are men responsible for
the evil of their upbringing? Is it not their mothers
rather, who should bear the heaviest burden of blame?

138 ANTI-SUFFRAGE ESSAYS

Every man is bom of woman and almost every man
is cared for by a woman throughout his earUest years.
The Jesuits, in their wisdom, founded on much experi-
ence, have said : "Give me a child until he is seven and
after that you may do what you like with him!" It is
these early years that count most in a man's future.
What have the mothers done in these years? Have
they taught their children the laws of the transmission
of life in their sacredness and their beauty, or, while
willingly teUing them of all the other facts of life, have
they let this one, by far the most important, go un-
told, fear tying their tongues, and given to themselves the
excuse of ignorance unequal to its task — an ignorance
which in a mother is culpable — I had almost said crim-
inal? Moreover, the responsibiUty of women for the
moral standards of men does not end with their boy-
hood, for each sex is ultimately what the other demands
of it to be. Men have demanded purity of their
women, but women have not demanded it of
men. Have not good women been in the habit of re-
ceiving into their society men whose past they know to
have been bad — yes, and even of encouraging their
daughters to marry such men for the sake of money or
of social position? Women's responsibiUty for the
social evil is greater than that of men, and those who
are most responsible are the good women of the com-
munity. The arraignment is severe, but is it not
deserved?

It is in childhood that the teaching of the sex rela-
tion must be given, — with the children that the training

ANTI-SUFFRAGE ESSAYS 139

of self-control must begin. If men and women are
started right in childhood, the later time will take
care of itself. I would not belittle the father's influence,
nor his teaching of his children; but of the two the
mother is the more important, for the man who
has talked of all things with his mother, to whom
the sacredness of motherhood is indissolubly bound
up with the great instinct of reproduction, will
find it very hard to go far wrong. The girl, too,
who understands the laws of her own nature and that
of the young men whom she meets, will be in a posi-
tion not only to choose her mate more wisely, but in the
things that come up every day among young people of
opposite sexes she will not excite in him, by word and
gesture, through mere careless ignorance, as is so often
done, a passion, which, though she go free and ignorant
of harm, may bring to him much needless suffering, and
may sometimes end in ruin both for him and for some
other.

Women, through their training of their sons and
daughters, hold the future of the world in their keeping.
This training cannot be given by the enactment of
laws; we cannot legislate the control of human passion.
The law-maker bears no relation to the character
builder.

"They're no more like than hornet's nests and hives

Or printed sarmons be to holy lives."

Law can only prevent wrongdoing, it is negative

at best, for its appeal in the end must be to fear, and a

people ruled by fear becomes a race of slaves. In a free

140 ANTI-SUFFRAOE ESSAYS

country it is impossible to enforce a law unless the will
of the people is behind it; and the moulding of this
will, its training and development, must come in early
childhood and must be done by its women. There is
no greater sophistry than that women need the vote to
protect themselves and one another from evil men.
Were most men libertines today, no law could be en-
forced against them. Were all men self-controlled and
pure in heart, no law would be required. The failure
of the women — the good women of the community —
to bring up their sons to be such men cannot be cor-
rected by any short and easy road, nor can their respon-
sibility for the present evil be obliterated by talk.
Women have failed to do their duty, and the only way
to prevent further evil is to do that duty now.

XVII

SUFFRAGE A STEP TOWARD FEMINISM

LILT RICE FOXCROFT

Ldly Rice Foxcroft, daughter of the late Rev.
Dr. Charles B. Rice of Danvers, Mass,, for nearly
twenty years Secretary of the Congregational Board of
Pastoral Supply; wife of Frank Foxcroft, editor of
*'The Living AgeJ^ Frequent contributor to the religious
press, the author of a volume entitled, ^'While You Are
a Girl,'^ and a welUknown speaker in opposition to woman
suffrage, J, A, H.

The strongest motive for anti-suffrage action is the
deepening dread of woman suffrage as a menace to the
home. The radical suffragists have little use for the
home, and the radical suffragists are young and bril-
liant, and their following grows rapidly. It is they who
are in the public eye; whom the reporters interview;
who, far more than the conservatives, are really in-
fluencing the thought of the day. They claim to be
the consistent thinkers, reasoning from the common
premise to conclusions from which "older women"
shrink. They welcome with whole-hearted enthusiasm
the theory of "economic independence."

141

142 ANTI-SUFFRAGE ESSAYS

This theory was first popularized by the Woman^s
Journal^ in a notable series of articles by Mrs. Charlotte
Perkins Oilman, an associate editor, which appeared
weekly in 1904, and of which the central thought was,
"The woman should be in the home as much as the
man is, no more." She urged women to "come out of
their httle monogamous harems," promised that
"when all women are m industry, the conditions of
industry will be compelled to suit the conditions of
maternity," and predicted the time when "a man would
no more think of having a woman become his house
servant than a woman would think of marrying her
butler and retaining him in that capacity." Mrs.
Oilman siunmarized these ideas, again, in a lecture in
New York last year: "The home of the future is one
in which not one stroke of work shall be done except
by professional people who are paid by the hour."

This theory meets so well the anti-suffrage argu-
ment that the woman, while spending most of her
time within the home, cannot be expected to attain
outside it a degree of eflBciency equal to that of the man,
that it naturally becomes part of the creed of the logical
and consistent suffragist. Miss Henrietta Rodman —
a wife who, like Miss Fola La Follette, retains her
maiden name, because taking that of a husband
"dwarfs individuality" — gave to a reporter of the
Boston Herald last year her opinion that "a house is as
demoralizing a place to stay in all day as a bed," and
assured him that the ideal feminist apartment-house,
with its co-operative nursery on the top floor, had its

ANTI-SUFFRAGE ESSAYS 143

plans actually drawn, its site chosen. "Trained stalBfs
are to relieve women of the four primitive industries —
care of houses, clothes, food and children/' "By real
motherhood," said Miss Rodman, "I do not mean
washing the baby's clothes, preparing its food, watch-
ing over its sleep, nursing it through its baby illnesses,
nor, in later years, darning the children's stockings,
making or even mending their clothes, preparing their
food or supervising their education. All these things
can be done better by experts. *'

No one can follow the utterances of this group of
suffragists without noting the constant slight cast on
"domestic drudgery," and the eagerness to prove other
Unes of activity better adapted to women. "There is
rising revolt among women," wrote Miss Edna Kenton,
in The Century for November, 1913, "against the un-
speakable dullness of unvaried home life. It has been
a long, deadly routine, a life-servitude imposed on her
for ages in a man-made world."

General Rosalie Jones, of "hiking fame," who is
now breaking into the automobile business, says:
"There are idiot asylums in every state whose in-
mates are expert at darning and mending. Any one
of those idiots sitting by the fireside could do the family
mending, while the woman of education, ingenuity
and conunon sense, could utiUze her faculties to the
betterment of her family and the country. . . .After
suffrage is granted, women will no longer be content
to waste their brains in this manner." Miss Inez
Boissevain's "Ten Minutes-a-Day> Housekeeping" is

144 ANTI-SUFFRAGE ESSAYS

well known, as is her declaration to the reporter that
she "should go crazy if she had to do housework one
whole day." "Young children," she admitted, "need
their mother. But," she added hopefully, "the age at
which they can be left with others is much less than it
was formerly supposed to be." Mrs. Rheta Childe Dorr,
Mrs. Pankhurst's closest companion on her last United
States tour, says: "Men are not yet used to seeing their
wives in the role of wage-earners. They'll have to get
used to it, that's all. . . .1 don't say that every mar-
ried woman must go to work outside her home. I
should commit suicide if I had to spend my life doing
housework, but some women probably Uke to do it.
Let them do it then. All I ask is that every woman,
married or single, should be allowed to choose the work
in which she finds the most pleasure."

"To choose the work in which she finds the most
pleasure" — there is the real individuaUstic note, sound-
ed so often by the radical sulBfragists. It is struck still
more clearly when to the reporter's question: "What
about the argument that the wife with a business career
is apt to deprive her husband of the joys of father-
hood?" Mrs. Dorr repUes: "No one but the individual
woman herself has any right to decide whether or not
she shall have children. That is a question which she
alone is entitled to settle."

In the same tone of contempt for the domestic
round in which the average wife and mother has been
accustomed to find her fair share of human satisfac-
tion, Mrs. Susan Fitzgerald wrote in the opening num-

ANTI-SUPPRAGE ESSAYS 145

ber of '^Femina'': "Of course, some women don't
want to do independent work; some prefer the quiet
routine and detail of the home and are satisfied to make
a profession of its many little refinements, even as
many men have not the ambition to go into business
for themselves. . . But the creative artist, whether
in a profession or business, gets most of the joy of liv-
ing out of the satisfaction that comes to him in his
work, and so I say, do away with the prejudice against
married women working outside their homes."

Miss Alyse Gregory — ^who has campaigned for suf-
frage in Connecticut and New Jersey with striking
success— says: "Girls should be self-supporting up
to the time of their marriage, and after marriage up
to the time when they begin to bear children. During
the child-bearing period there might be some provision
made for mothers by the State, as is now done in
France; then all women who have reared families and
who again find themselves with leisure on their hands,
should again be self-supporting.'' This, of course, is
the SociaUst view, and Miss Gregory, like so many
of the younger suffragists, is presumably a Socialist.

Another pronounced advocate of economic inde-
pendence is Mrs. Havelock Ellis — an English suf-
fragist much feted on her visits to this country — of
whom an admirer writes in the Chicago Herald, that
"she has never accepted a penny from her husband
since they were married." It will be noticed that all
these women are in professional work, in which their
earnings may reasonably be expected to provide "ex-

146 ANTI-SUFFRAGE ESSAYS

pert'' care for their children. Incidentally, does not
that support the anti-snfifrage claim that the suffrage
movement is gauged to the talents and habits of ex-
ceptional, rather than average, women, and that its
principles are not those under which the average wo-
man's life finds its best development?

This tendency away from domestic life fosters the
very evils which conservative suffragists hope to remedy
by the vote. Even more startling is the tone taken in
the discussion of ''sex problems." Interviewed on the
subject of ''war babies'' last siunmer by an enterprising
syndicate which spread her views all over the coimtry,
Mrs. Rheta Childe Dorr said: "There are always war
babies at a time when normal restraints are removed
and slackened. After a great reUgious revival in any
town there is an increased number of illegitimate chil-
dren. . . The government endowed inmioraUty when
it entered the war. . . . The government made
war, the war made war babies — then let the govern-
ment take care of them."

To the same interviewer, Miss Eleanor Gates, of
the Empire State Campaign Committee, said: "It's
unfortunate that the parents of these babies did not
take out licenses to be parents. . . . But more un-
fortunate, to my mind, than an omission of the license,
is the fact that motherhood should ever be counted a
crime. . . . And, when all is said and done, I, my-
self, respect the unmarried woman with a child more
than I do the married woman with a poodle."

These are the utterances of conspicuous leaders of

ANTI-SUFFRAGE ESSAYS 147

the younger, more radical wing of the woman sulBfrage
movement; and no one who follows with any care their
speeches and writings can claim that they are out of
character. Is it unfair to say such utterances confuse
moral values and weaken the sense of individual re-
sponsibility?

This regret that ''motherhood should ever be count-
ed a crime" is often more tersely expressed in the
phrase "right to motherhood," first made fashionable,
I believe, by Mr. Bernard Shaw. It was given pub-
licity last June through an address made by Prof. W.
I. Thomas of the University of Chicago at the banquet
held by the Chicago Equal Suffrage Association in
honor of the National Executive Council. Professor
Thomas said, "in substance" — I quote the Woman^s
Journal — "that many women who could not marry
were earnestly desirous of children, and that it ought
to be recognized that monogamy was not the only
relation in which it was respectable for a woman to
have a child." The National Association, as is well
known, is the conservative wing of the wranghng suf-
fragist army, and contains most of those "middle-
aged reformers" whom the "younger generation" dis-
pose of so easily by saying that they have not kept up
with the times. Miss AUce Stone Blackwell promptly
combatted the speaker's opinions, and the Woman^s
Journal reports that she was heartily applauded.

But Professor Thomas is not so easily disavowed. A
ten-page pamphlet, "Votes for Women," pubhshed by
the Massachusetts Woman Suffrage Association, is of

148 ANTI-SUFFRAGE ESSATS

his authorship. In The Case for Woman Suffrage,
a bibliography with critical comments, published by
the National College Equal Suffrage League in 1913,
eighty-eight lines are given to quotations from Pro-
fessor Thomas's works, while Miss Blackwell's receive
only forty. Such comparisons may seem trifling, but
they are significant. If any one doubts the hold of
the feminist ideas upon many of the most influential
suffragists, he may be convinced by himself examining
The Case for Woman Suffrage, Anti-suffragists are
often accused of arguing from isolated, casual
utterances. For my part, I find it impossible to
reproduce, by any quotations, the impression of reck-
lessness left by habitually reading pubUcations, both
American and English, in sympathy with suffrage.

Our age is not one that can afford to trifle with
recklessness. Its own problems are of the sort that caU
for prudence and restraint. The International Purity
Congress in San Francisco has laterly drawn attention
to the spread of immorality among school girls. Suf-
fragists offer to "mother the community." It is the
individual girl that needs mothering. She is not helped
to self-control by reading in her favorite news-paper
that Inez Haynes Gilmore, interviewed as to the use
of ''obey'' in the marriage service, has said: ''To me
the promise to love and honor is more extraordinary
— it's easier to promise to obey. It's impossible to
promise to control the emotions." The lesson the girl
draws from a play like Hindle Wakes, when Inez
Milholland, in McClure^s, calls her attention to

ANTI-SUFFRAGE ESSAYS 149

it, is not that men must be as chaste as women, but
that it is one of women's rights to be as lax as men.

Professor Thomas' views called forth resolutions
from the Executive Board of the National Suffrage
Association, which took a curious form. They read:
"While we do not wish to criticise the speaker's re-
marks as such, we heard them with profound misgiv-
ings as to their effect upon the cause of suffrage in
the campaign states." The anti-suffrage majorities
in the campaign states certainly proved the misgivings
well-timed. But, however such remarks may have
been received, is it not a significant fact that they were
ventured, by a reputable man, at a reputable gather-
ing? Can anyone doubt that radical views are start-
lingly on the increase?

Two years ago Mrs. Winifred Harper Cooley wrote
in Harper^ s Weekly of the "single standard": "There
is a violent altercation going on continually, within
the ranks of feminists in all countries, regarding this
question. The conservative women reformers think
the solution is in hauling men up to the standard of
virginal purity that has always been set for women.
The other branch, claiming to have a broader knowl-
edge of human nature, asserts that it is impossible and
perhaps undesirable to expect asceticism from all men
and women." In the Forum, of April, 1915, a corres-
pondent from California signing herself "Lottie Mont-
gomery," expanded in revolting detail what was,
after all, pretty much the same idea. "On every
hand," she remarked, "we hear of the 'single

150 ANTI-SUFFRAGE ESSAYS

standard of morals/ by which the 'purists' mean
a strict monogamous life for both men and women,
and by which the feminists mean an opportun-
ity to express themselves sexually whenever they
see fit without the interference and permission of the
Church and State, and this neither constitutes promis-
uity, nor yet polyandry, but an opportimity to live
your own life in your own way and not to have to sac-
rifice your name, privacy, self-respect and income in
order to gratify the sex instinct.'' And, passing from
theory to practical observation, she asserts: "Whether
we like to admit it or not, the fact remains that women
today, from the mansion to the tenement, are acquir-
ing sex experience outside of marriage, which accounts
for the great mental strides they have made with the
past two decades.'' In the pubUcation, by a leading
editor, of such sentiments, we have an alarming sign
of the times.

There are too many such signs. Do we not all
know long-established magazines which have pub-
lished, within the last five years, serials that they
would not have considered fifteen years ago?

Says Punches reviewer of a recent heroine: ''Her
point of view was typified in her attitude toward the
illicit and incidental motherhood of one of her ac-
quaintances. Without hearing the facts, she pro-
nounced it to be 'a courageous stand against conven-
tional morality,' which it just possibly might have
proved to be upon enquiry, and by no means a weak
surrender to immediate desires, as much more probably

ANTI-SUFFRAGE ESSAYS 151

it was in fact." The author of AngeWs Business
depicts precisely the same mental attitude in the
crimson-faced woman at the Redmantle Club, who de-
mands of Charles in an angry sort of way, "Don't
you favor a pubUc reception immediately to splendid
Flora Travenna? Don't you think she's struck a great
blow for freedom?" — Flora Trevenna having just re-
turned home after an absence of two years in the com-
pany of another woman's husband.

One of Robert Herrick's heroines prophesies — ^in
line with Professor Thomas — ''The time will come when
single women Uke me, who work as men work, will
have the courage to love and bear children if they
need — and men will respect them."

Will it be beUeved that an English magazine of
fine literary quaUty, in which the work of Galsworthy
and Arnold Bennett has often appeared, has printed
an article by a woman pleading for a pubUc sentiment
in favor of irregular unions? ''Women will go a step
further toward freedom than men have dared to go,"
says Mrs. Walter Gallachan. "I beUeve that if there
were some open recognition of these partnerships
outside of marriage, not necessarily permanent, there
would be many women who would be willing to under-
take such unions gladly; there would even be some
women, as I believe, who would prefer them to the
present system that binds them permanently to one
partner for life."

To many women these views seem so shocking that
they cannot believe them to be widespread. I can

152 ANTI-SUFFRAGE ESSAYS

only say that such women are leading ''sheltered
lives/' Said a conspicuous young feminist in an in-
terview given to a Boston Sunday paper, "It is both
cruel and foolish (eugenically and ethically) to pre-
vent people from trying more than once to find their
ideal comrade for race propagation." The fiction of
today is full of the disgusting experiences of young
persons trying to find their ideal comrades. And an
appalling niunber of these books bear marks of brilliant
talent, utterly unconscious of moral standards/'studies
of adolescence," many of them are. Illicit relations
are entered on in the most casual way and dropped
as casually, and yet glorified as marking new eras of
"development."

I know, of course, the answer made by thoughtful,
conscientious suffragists who beheve as strongly as I
do in the integrity of the home, when facts like these
are brought to their attention. "All suffragists are not
feminists. All feminism is not of this extreme sort.
Feminism is nothing but a theory, anyway."

Each of us must judge from her own observation;
but it should be observation, not merely of the lives
of one's personal acquaintance, but of current thought
and tendency. Many of us are convinced that an
increasing and influential number of suffragists are
feminists, that a great deal of feminism is of this ex-
treme sort, and that it is a "theory" which, through
channels direct and indirect, is poisoning our literature
and our social Ufe.

IMPORTANT ANTI-SUFFRAGE PUBLICATIONS

(For pamphlets and leaflets on the various aspects of the
question address the Secretary of the Women's Anti-Suffrage
Association, Kensington Building, 687 Boylston Street, Boston.)

BOOKS AND PAMPHLETS

James M. Biickley, The Wrong and Peril of Woman Suf-
frage. (Fleming H. Revell Co., New York.) Not a
recent book, but contains a good deal of permanently
useful matter not foimd elsewhere.

Helen Kendrick Johnson, Woman and the Republic. (25c;
The Woman's Protest, 237 West 39th Street, New York.)
Especially valuable for its information about the history
of woman suffrage in relation to the political and social
development of the nineteenth century.

Ida M. Tarhell, The Business of Being a Woman. (11.25;
The Macmillan Company, New York.) The book which
best expresses the anti-suffrage view of woman's place in
modem society. See also Miss Tarbell's The Ways of
Woman; (The Macmillan Company,) and The Book
OF Woman's Power. (11.25; do).

/. Lionel Tayler, The Nature of Woman, (11.25; E. P. Dutton
& Company, N. Y.) The best treatment of biology and
sex in their relation to the question.

E. S, Martin, The Unrest of Women, (D. Appleton &
Company, New York.) A good-natured, but shrewd,
analysis of manifestations of feminism in Miss Thomas,
Mrs. Belmont, Miss MillhoUand, etc., by the genial
editor of Life,

Ernest Bernbaum and George R. Conroy, The Case Against
Woman Suffrage, (Anti-Suffrage Association, 687
Boylston Street, Boston.) This pamphlet of fifty small
pages, which briefly covers all the chief points of the anti-
suffrage case, was widely distributed during the 1915
campaign.

PERIODICALS

Anti-Suffrage Notes. Issued every other week, sometimes
weekly; $1 a year. (Subscriptions should be sent to Mrs.
George Sheffield, 33 Brewster Street, Cambridge.)

The Woman's Protest. Monthly. The organ of the National
Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage. II a year.
(37 West 39th Street, New York City.)

The Remonstrance. Quarterly. The organ of the Massachu-
setts Anti-Suffrage Association. 25c a year. (Mrs.
James M. Codman, Walnut Street, Brookline.)

The borrower must return this item on or before
the last date stamped below. If another user
places a recall for this item, the borrower will
be notified of the need for an earlier return.

Non-receipt of overdue notices does not exempt
the borrower from overdue fines.

Harvard College Widener Library
Cambridge, MA 02138 617-495-2413

Please handle with care.

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library collections at Harvard.

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